* 
ri 


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THE GODDESS FORTUNA 
IN 


MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 


LONDON : HUMPHRE 


Y MI 


ITY | 


OXFORD UNIVERS 


““Of chaunges newe lady and princesse.”’ 


Lydgate, Fall of Princes, vi, 1, 210. 


-’The Goddess Fortuna 


In 


Mediaeval Literature 


BY 


HOWARD R. PATCH, Pu.D., Lrrr.D. 


PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN SMITH COLLEGE 


(Cambridge 


Harvard University Press 


1927 


PATRI MATRIQUE 


PREFACE 


ape present study is based on my dissertation on the 
same subject, which was presented for the doctorate 
at Harvard University in 1915. Much of the material is 
substantially the same as that which appeared in my 
thesis, although it has seemed unwise to present here all 
the evidence at my disposal. The wealth of what is 
available would furnish forth a small encyclopaedia; 
what I have printed here has seemed sufficient in general 
to indicate the extent and richness of the cult, and the 
footnotes, limited as they are, will even now be open to 
the charge of pedantry. Early in the course of this piece 
of research it became apparent that there was no special 
reason for trying to be exhaustive. Indeed, of late my 
temptation has been to meander through the subject, 
avoiding the systematic, and taking up each bit of ma- 
terial for what it is worth — and from that point of view 
it is worth a good deal. “For the essence of humanism,” 
at least according to Pater, “is that belief... that 
nothing which has ever interested living men and women 
can wholly lose its vitality-— no language they have 
spoken, nor oracle beside which they have hushed their 
voices, no dream which has once been entertained by 
actual human minds, nothing about which they have ever 
been passionate, or expended time and zeal.’”’ But the 
more formal method is probably also the more economi- 
cal, at least in point of time. 

My general subject was originally suggested to me by 
Professor W. A. Neilson, now President of Smith Col- 


Vill PREFACE 


lege. He guided me through the initial perplexities of 
my work, and has read the present manuscript with a 
care that has produced many fruitful criticisms. Profes- 
sor G. L. Kittredge of Harvard University has given me 
both the particular and the indefinable aid which one can 
hardly describe, but which all his students know. Sev- 
eral of the chapters were originally prepared under his 
supervision, and his advice and encouragement helped 
me at every point when as a graduate student I was liv- 
ing “in sorwe and care.’ Valuable assistance has come 
to me also from Professor F. N. Robinson; and for 
special favors I am under obligation to Professors Grand- 
gent, Rand, Woods, and Lowes, and to the late Professor 
Edward S. Sheldon. I am indebted as well to the cura- 
tors of the Bodleian Library, the library of the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge, the British Museum, and the Bib- 
liothéque Nationale of Paris, for permission to have the 
photographs made which appear in the plates of the 
present volume. My attention was drawn by Professor 
Roger S. Loomis of Columbia University to the inlay 
in the door at Siena, represented by plate 11; and Pro- 
fessor E. K. Rand of Harvard gave me the photograph 
of the painting shown in plate 12. | 

It is a pleasure for me to acknowledge these many 
kindnesses. More than a word should be added, however, 
with regard to the tireless and painstaking efforts of Miss 
Addie F. Rowe in checking up the details of this study; 
her conscientiousness and her bland indifference to re- 
ward should be known by more than those who are likely 
to have the advantage of her help. | 
Hiviea 


CONTENTS 


MeO 3 
Chapter 
Meenerenilosophy of Fortune ........ . 8 
II. Traditional Themes of Fortune in Mediaeval 
"oe 7S OR ee ets 
Seemeboncuonsand Cults... 4... 6: be 88 
Bye ine Dwellino-Place of Fortune ....... 123 
Ree ines Wheel@. 0. 2 ek ek ww we 147 
PEE fk ee a le 178 
NS a 181 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ee Facing page 
MS. Harley 4373, folio 14: translation of Valerius Maxi- 
mus, XIV—xv century. 


Ne ad ees 
Paris MS., Bibl. Nationale, Fr. 809, folio 40: Jean de 
Meun’s translation of Boethius, xv century. 


Er ek be ke 
Royal MS. 16 F tv, folio 3: Lestrif de Fortune et de Vertu, 
by Martin le Franc; late xv century. 


OE a 
Royal MS. 20 C tv, folio 77vo: Laurent de Premierfait’s 
translation of Boccaccio’s De Casibus, first half of the xv 
century, showing the struggle of Poverty and Fortune. 


Re kL el we we ee wy a 
British Museum MS. 10,341, folio 31vo: Jean de Meun’s 
translation of Boethius, xv century. 


a 
Corpus Christi Coll. MS., Cambridge, 66, folio 66: Imago 


Mundi, xii century, showing Fortune and Sapience. 


Rs i ee ei ee ee 
MS. Cotton Tib. A vit, folio sgvo: Pilgrimage of the 
Life of Man, translated from Guillaume de Guilleville, 
XIV—-XV century. 7 


UCM eo seis oe: Glas all» lade ae acne 
MS. Douce 371, folio 40v0: Le Roman de la Rose, xv cen- 
tury, showing Fortune’s house. 


ii 


32 


72 


102 


Ii2 


130 


130 


X11 ILLUSTRATIONS 


PLATE: 800 CN ee 
Paris MS., Bibl. Nationale, Fr. 1584, folio 297: Guillaume 
de Machaut’s Livre du Voir Dit, x1v century. 


ag © + NONE An rere. 
Paris MS., Bibl. Nationale, Fr. 1586, folio 30v0: works of 


Guillaume de Machaut, xv century. 


PLATE TO° PO ee 
Lydgate’s Falle of Princis, ed. 1494, cut at the beginning 
of Book v1. The same design is also found in the French 
translation of Boccaccio’s De Casibus, Paris, 1483. See 
L. S. Olschki, Le Livre Illustré au XV Siécle, Florence, 


1926, pl. cxil. 


PLATE TL See 2e r 
Wooden inlay by Dom. di Nicolo (?), 1514-1520, in the 
door of the Cappella del Consiglio of the Palazzo Pub- 


blico, Siena. 


PLATE 1202 ee Sg 
Painting by Lorenzo Leonbruno, 1439-1537, Allegoria della 
Fortuna, Brera Gallery, Milan. 


158 


164 


166 


178 


THE GODDESS FORTUNA 
IN 


MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 


Ti yap evperov } TL wabnrov éotiy avOpwroas, 
el TAaVTA TepalveTar KATA TUXNHV; 
Piurtarcn, De Fortuna, 98, A. 


Quapropter efiigiem dei formamque quaerere 
imbecillitatis humanae reor. 


Puiny, Natural History, 11, 14. 


I pray thee fortune, (fortune if thou be) 
Come heere aside, for I must braule with thee. 
Tuomas Bastarp, Epigrams, ii, 35. 


INTRODUCTION 


7 ae who has investigated the literature of the 
Middle Ages or that of the Renaissance will be 
fully aware that at least one pagan deity seems to have 
survived the decline and fall of ancient Rome. Allusions 
to the Goddess Fortuna abound in the literature of 
those periods, as references to Venus and Jove and other 
members of the classical pantheon do not. Even now, 
in our own day, we find some mention of the capricious 
deity in passages where there is no conscious intention 
of a classical allusion; and pictures of the goddess, stand- 
ing on a ball or turning her prepotent wheel, still adorn 
magazines and gift-cards, and even invade the pages 
of our dignified journalism. But in earlier times the 
instances were far more numerous. An author could 
hardly compose a poem without devoting at least a 
stanza to the goddess; books introduced some mention of 
her on nearly every page; the philosopher seriously dis- 
cussed the meaning of such a figure; clerk and layman 
alike paid her a really extraordinary amount of attention. 
The result inevitably is that the wealth of all this material 
constitutes a special problem in itself, for the history of 
philosophy and literature, and also for the history of 
mankind. 

One may easily dispose of the question how it is that 
Fortuna of all the deities was the only one to survive the 
change in religion with the advent of Christianity. I 
shall deal with some of the details of that process later, 


4 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


but now I may briefly indicate the underlying principle 
which governs the matter. As investigators have several 
times observed, Fortuna is not the goddess of a special 
function, like Venus or Diana; she is not even the personi- 
fication of a special aspect of fate, like Lachesis or Atro- 
pos. She represents one view, degraded if you like, of a 
universal, omnipotent god; and therefore her only rival 
could be such a figure as that of Jove. But in the period 
of decadent Rome, and in the early Middle Ages, it was 
not the figure of Jove that held sway, but that of the 
fickle goddess. And why? Because men at that time so 
regarded the universe — not as an ordered and properly 
ruled domain, but as the realm of the mutable and hap- 
hazard forces which we generalize and characterize as 
“chance.” With the coming of Christianity the idea of 
Jove, in so far as a trace of it survived during the Em- 
pire, was supplanted by that of the Christian God; but 
there was no new equivalent for the figure of ruling 
“chance,” and Fortune, accordingly, had that field to 
herself. 

The problem of the element of “chance” in life was not 
considered in that period for the first time. It is one that 
almost certainly everybody has to face, and that man- 
kind has had to deal with since first religious processes 
came to occupy its attention. Whether we acknowledge 
the existence of this element or not, somehow we seem to 
be forced to settle the problem, in so far, at least, as it 
involves ourselves. If life is in part a process of adjust- 
ment to one’s environment, it is necessary at the outset 
to have some conception about the nature of that en- 
vironment, especially in the way in which it affects ex- 
perience and conduct. Thus, by a gradual shaping of 


INTRODUCTION 5 


opinion, which includes testing and rejecting, and no 
doubt much bungling of the matter, we come to hold our 
own views about the working of the universe, our views 
of whatever gods there be. In the material which serves 
to guide us in this development, the seemingly casual is 
bound to play a large part. Events which seem to happen 
by chance, or the interrelation of which, at least, seems to 
be wholly casual, greatly outnumber those which we can 
definitely ascribe to the visible working of some force. 
Furthermore, what direction controls the force itself? In 
order to guide one’s own conduct into channels that lead 
profitably — and with what else is the world eternally 
occupied? — one has to make up one’s mind as to the 
dependability and profit of things in general. 

On such matters surely every human being has come to 
some conclusion, if only to decide that life is, or is not, 
worth living, and that on the whole he 1s willing to “take 
a chance.” In this way the Goddess Fortuna 1s the re- 
flection, simply, of one kind of human temperament. She 
is the answer which a certain type of person will give to 
these questions. The cynic has remarked that mankind 
creates its god in its own image; but let us observe rather 
that our apprehension of the Divine is necessarily quali- 
fied by the personality through which we have our vision. 
Human beings who perceive the validity of law and order 
will cherish faith in an ordered universe. Those, on the 
other hand, who find that order sometimes imposes re- 
straint, and that restraint 1s sometimes tyranny, will 
rejoice in the freedom that beckons from uncharted 
ways, and for them a universe of chance will mean a uni- 
verse of opportunity. The point of contrast is probably 
fundamental, and I suspect that, if we followed this 


6 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


matter through and listened long enough to the wrangling 
of the contestants, we should find ultimately that it in- 
volves that ancient battle of the books, the age-old 
quarrel about classicism and romanticism. Some sugges- 
tion of this, at least, will be forthcoming later when we 
look into the history of the problem of Fortune. 

The study of the goddess, then, is philosophical as well 
as literary, and on that basis I shall proceed. In the first 
place, I shall review the general history of the cult of 
Fortune in the Middle Ages; and afterward the more 
literary problems will be dealt with, including motifs and 
formulae (or themes) used in the accounts devoted to her, 
and various descriptions of her house and her wheel. But 
even these later chapters have a distinct bearing on the 
whole question of her philosophy and her meaning in the 
history of mankind. The trappings, the ritual of her 
worship, if we may call it so, have their own signifi- 
cance,— in their elaborateness, for one thing, and in the 
steadiness even unto monotony of their tradition, for 
another. The very number of these references means 
something. It would have been justifiable, even if not 
humanly possible, to include in my footnotes all the 
references to the goddess in all accessible literature, up 
to thousands upon thousands of items, no matter how 
confounding such a mass of footnotes might have been to 
a certain type of critic and to the “literati.” How indis- 
pensable the lady was to the mediaeval mind (as well as 
to that of later times) no one knows who has not tried to 
accumulate the vast number of passages in which she 
makes her everlastingly debonair appearance. But, while 
it is hardly possible to be really “exhaustive,” the present 
material may suggest the extent of her popularity. 


INTRODUCTION 5 


Another limitation, however, is that of time: the full 
account of Fortune’s career would reach back into the 
remote antiquity of ancient Rome and come down to the 
modern era; but here I have taken for my field only the 
Middle Ages, with a glance or two at what preceded and 
what followed. And I have necessarily been forced to 
exclude the parallel developments of this conception in 
German and Greek and other literatures, where Fortuna 
reigned also, but under a different name. 


CHAPTER I 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 


HETHER its method is sound or not, or its con- 
clusions fruitful, modern thought is indubitably 
moving toward the conclusion that man’s opinion about 
God is fully as important for the study of man as it is for 
theology. It is perfectly obvious that the recorded con- 
ceptions of the Divine nature reveal the traces of differing 
human temperaments. If, as I have urged, the goddess of 
chance represents at least one of these, then, theoretically 
one might characterize a man, whether writer, philoso- 
pher, or plain layman, according to his confessed belief 
or disbelief in her. The conclusions one may reach will 
necessarily show the lack of precision that any attempt 
to classify human nature always shows; and yet they will 
have value in so far as they agree with experience, and in 
that way will gain validity for the reader. This, perhaps 
pseudo-scientific, task of analyzing human nature is prac- 
tically what I have attempted in some detailed studies 
elsewhere * concerning the opinions of various important 
literary men in the Middle Ages. A summary of these 
opinions, however, may have a special value in itself, to 
show the general trend of thought on this subject in the 
period. How did men in general feel about the problem of 
Fortune? Did opinion vary from one time to another? 
Was chance regarded as the ruling force of life? 
Our estimate of the period is necessarily limited by the 


* Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, vol. III, nos. 3 and 4; 
vol. IV, no. 4. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 9 


fact that we can draw our evidence only from the edu- 
cated and the philosophical or hterary element in the 
population. The lower classes, among which we should 
naturally expect to find primitive cults surviving the 
longest, either as religion or simply as folk-lore, have left 
us few records of their own ideas and customs. By refer- 
ences in St. Augustine and other early Fathers we know 
that, for a while at least, Fortuna remained alive among 
the people; lyrics of a more or less popular kind echo 
something of their devotion to the figure, whether in jest 
or in earnest; and the prevalence of the cult among the 
educated would make it highly probable that it was 
known to some extent elsewhere — especially if, as seems 
to be the case, a belief in pure chance is not commonly 
found in the philosophically-minded. Fortune as nothing 
more than a literary figure, as a conventional symbol of 
use to those who had some contact with the classics, 
would have been worn threadbare long since; but her 
meaning was really vital to everybody, and so, in spite of 
the vast number of allusions to her, and the frigid repeti- 
tion of the formulae associated with her, she persisted.* 
And it requires little time to discover that apparently 
among all classes of men she is still familiar in our own 
day. We may therefore, I think, take the reflection in 
literature and philosophy in the period as fairly typical, 
and bear in mind that these writers set down their re- 
marks, after all, for an audience. 

A special difficulty of another kind, however, must be 
mentioned at this point. In tracing the history of the 


* The history of personified Nature furnishes an interesting parallel for 
study. See Dr. Knowlton’s investigations, fournal of English and Germanic 
Philology, XXIV, 409 ff., and references; cf. Palaestra, CX, Leipzig, 1923. 


if THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


goddess we cannot always be sure of the precise concep- 
tion for which she was a symbol. The difficulty is like 
that of the exact meaning of any word in any particular 
period. Yet a tradition which fixes the denotation of the 
name was fairly well established, and in most cases an 
author shows by his discussion what figure he had in 
mind. 


I 


In the pre-Christian period the Goddess Fortuna was 
not at all times identical with the goddess of chance. The 
word fortuna itself does not seem to carry any such basic 
idea at the outset, or anything indeed beyond the general 
conception of Fate. The idea that “Fate” operated in a 
casual way was apparently a later addition — after the 
lapse of centuries. In other words, from meaning simply 
“the one who brings our destiny,” the term later came to 
signify the one who performs that act in a capricious 
way. Although someone may object to this theory of 
development on the ground that the word 1s at start 
feminine, we may note that, according to one view, the 
original deity was simply known as “Fors,” to which 
“fortuna’’ was added as a cognomen, later only to break 
off and become independent; * but even the latter term 
might imply nothing more than the creative power, 
whether it served by itself in the first place, or not. In 
any case, there is a strong likelihood that at first the word 
implied pure Fate, and the development seems to have 
been parallel to that of the Greek rixy.? Differing views 
of the force that controls external circumstances, or rather 
of the nature of the external (and sometimes the internal) 


* See Carter, Religion of Numa, pp. 50 f. 
2 See Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie, XIII, 12. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE II 


world, were thus reflected in the history of this expres- 
sion. A period which saw the universe ruled by order 
used “‘Fors Fortuna,’ or simply “Fortuna,” as the equiv- 
alent of “Fate”; another, which rejected order and 
emphasized (at least from the human point of view) 
caprice, used the term to mean “chance.” 

For the Middle Ages it is important merely to observe 
that the second attitude was in vogue at the end of the 
classical period, when, in fact, the meaning was fixed 
with that rigor which, more or less invading all classical 
Latin, meant that it was no longer a living language. 
From a wealth of possible illustrations two will serve. 
The first, from Ovid, is one which was well known in 
mediaeval times: 


Passibus ambiguis Fortuna uolubilis errat 
et manet in nullo certa tenaxque loco: 
sed modo laeta uenit; uultus modo sumit acerbos; 
et tantum constans in leuitate sua est. 
(Tristia, V, viii, 15-18.) 


The second, taken from the elder Pliny, shows the des- 
pair of a thoughtful man at the prevalence of the cult: 


Inuenit tamen inter has utrasque sententias medium sibi ipsa mor- 
talitas numen, quo minus etiam plana de deo coniectatio esset. toto 
quippe mundo et omnibus locis omnibusque horis omnium uocibus 
Fortuna sola inuocatur ac nominatur, una accusatur, rea una agitur, 
una cogitatur, sola laudatur, sola arguitur et cum conuiciis colitur, 
uolubilis . . . que, a plerisque uero et caeca existimata, uaga, incon- 
stans, incerta, uaria, indignorumque fautrix. huic omnia expensa, 
huic feruntur accepta, et in tota ratione mortalium, sola utramque 
paginam facit, adeoque obnoxiae sumus sortis, ut prorsus ipsa pro 


deo sit qua deus probatur incertus. 
(Natural History, 11, 22.) 


The epithets here applied to the goddess may be found 


many times elsewhere. Horace speaks of her fickleness: 


V2 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Transmutat incertos honores, 
nunc mihi, nunc alii benigna. 
(Odes, LTT; xxix; 6179 

She is described in various accounts as caeca and fragilis; 
she is a meretrix. Plutarch called in the philosophy of 
Aristotle to give her a reasonable basis of existence,” and 
explained her as the “cause by accident” which is 
proper only to man, and which is the necessary cause to 
allow for human free-will. She is not, however, rational 
enough even to reward virtue and punish vice: “Nihil 
eripit fortuna, nisi quod dedit: uirtutem autem non dat” 
(Seneca, De Constantia Sapientiae, v, 2). 

In the Empire, then, Fortuna flourished with consider- 
able power as the goddess of chance. I am not concerned 
to prove that she was in every case worshipped as an 
actual deity, or even so regarded;? there is ample evidence 
to show that, goddess or abstraction, she was enormously 
popular. There were numerous temples dedicated in her 
honor; in the differing aspects of her cult her activities 
became almost universal in scope, until as “Fortuna 
Panthea”’ she absorbed the functions of many other 
gods; * and for several emperors she was nothing less than 
a tutelary. The reason for this remarkable growth is not 
far to seek. The Empire was an essentially romantic 
period, when Rome, with a limitless ambition for 
worldly conquest, ventured forth into the unknown, and 
in nearly every turn of human life felt the risks which 
imply chance. It was, moreover, a time of religious skep- 

* De Fato; see especially 5-7. 

2 Cf. Fowler’s article in Hastings’s Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 
VI, 98 ff. 


3 Roscher’s Lexikon, 1534 ff., gives a convenient account of this phe- 
nomenon. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 13 


ticism, with a general dabbling in foreign creeds, and 
without much spiritual depth. At such a time Fortuna 
naturally came into her own. To men who felt that life 
shows no signs of fairness, that whatever lies beyond is at 
best dubious, that the most you can do is to take what 
comes your way, Fortuna represented a useful, if at some 
times flippant, summary of the way things go. “Euentus 
docuit fortes fortunam iuuare,” they said,‘ not, I think, 
without cynicism. “Trust God and keep your powder 
dry.” 

As the Roman, however, came to regard himself as at 
the mercy of Fortune, so he tried to save himself by 
limiting her powers. One way to be successful in this was 
to show courage. Another was to oppose reason to her 
unreason, to live the life of wisdom; and another, less 
widely used, perhaps, was to devote one’s self to those 
concerns in which Fortuna had no part — the activities 
of virtue. It is “prudentia” which Juvenal advocates 
(Satires, x, 363); and Seneca, whom I have already quoted 
in a similar connection, also writes as follows: ““‘Vnum 
Bonum esse, quod Honestum est.’ . . . nam, qui alia bona 
iudicat, in fortunae uenit potestatem, alieni arbitri fit” 
(Epistles, lxxiv,1). These methods of dealing with Fortuna 
move actually in the direction of putting her out of exis- 
tence. Her power is at least not universal, if one may suc- 
cessfully take a stand against her. If reason maintains a 
validity above and beyond her caprice, if virtue has a 
meaning which she is unable to obliterate, she cannot be 
the only deity that rules the skies. In fact, in proportion 
as these methods are triumphant, she becomes a subordi- 
nate figure, Vigorous as she was, a possibility of a differ- 


t Livy, Historia, viii, 29. 


14 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


ent conception of things, therefore, was already in the 
mind of the Romans; and the fact of this possibility shows 
a need which would call for fulfilment. 


II 


A new conception was, of course, found in Christianity. 
Here was the idea of a rational God, who gave validity to 
reason; and here too virtue had a supreme significance. It 
can hardly be supposed that such a completely different 
view of things prevailed everywhere at once, any more 
than that everybody instantly became a devotee of what 
was regarded as a foreign and a not too respectable cult. 
The difficulty of the change, however, may be represented 
in a more subtle fashion than this. As in ancient Rome 
not everybody— indeed, probably very few people—had 
genuinely held the nobler opinions implicit in the opposi- 
tion to Fortuna which I have described, so there would be 
a limited number in the early Middle Ages who would be 
ready for the conception of a rational God, or of a God 
who gave an essential meaning to virtue. This being the 
case, there were bound to be many who continued to see 
things in the old way. It was still possible for the human 
temperament to persist which believed mainly in chance. 
Spiritual rebirth could not come automatically to the 
whole of Europe. How far such a belief in chance was 
identified with a faitlrin Fortuna it would be impossible 
to determine; but the figure of the goddess was at least 
convenient, and extraordinarily familiar. The great num- 
ber of allusions to her, the detailed accounts of her ac- 
tivities, the descriptions and portraits in the works of 
literally hundreds of authors, constitute, it would seem, 
almost a sufficient argument to prove the survival of her 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 15 
worship in the Middle Ages. One impression of what hap- 


pened in this particular is recorded in the statement of 
Cumont, that “in Latin Europe in spite of the anathemas 
of the church the belief remained confusedly alive all 
through the Middle Ages that on this earth everything 
happens somewhat “Per ovra delle rote magne.’”’ * 

The Church Fathers refer, with some uneasiness, to the 
pagan tradition of the goddess. In Tertullian’s day and 
in that of St. Augustine, the special fidelity to Fortuna 
Muliebris, Fortuna Dux, Fortuna Barbata, and the like, 
was still alive. Her chief characteristic as the personifica- 
tion of disorder is presented steadily in the numerous 
accounts, which are found in many types of literature, 
from Martianus Capella down to the drinking-songs of 
the Carmina Burana and Nigellus Wireker’s Speculum 
Stultorum, and even afterward. Arturo Graf held that 
“the populace, who understand little and care less about 
the subtle disputes and more subtle distinctions of the 
theologians and the philosophers, never abandoned faith 
in one or more powers, occult and irresistible, distinct and 
separate from the divine will, and variously designated, 
as the case might be, by the name of destiny, fortuna, or 
astrological influence.” ? 

The Roman goddess, however, could not flourish in her 
new background without, at least, readjustment. Belief 
in chance was not officially welcome to the new faith 
which maintained that even the hairs of the human head 
are numbered, and that not a sparrow falls without 
God’s knowledge. Inasmuch as actual belief in the cas- 
ual carried with it the assumption that just so much 

‘ The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, authorized translation 


(Chicago, 1911), pp. 179 ff. 
2 Graf, Miti, Leggende e Superstizioni, 1, 276. 


16 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


territory lay outside of the province of the Christian God, 
the Church waged special war against what was probably 
at first an unexpected foe in Fortuna. It was no longer 
sufficient to oppose her with fortitude, with prudence or 
with philosophy, or even with virtue. It must be made 
clear that she had no actual existence, that her works 
were only illusory. Such a definite stand was taken by 
the Fathers, from Lactantius and St. Augustine to St. 
Thomas Aquinas. According to such writers as Lactan- 
tius and St. Jerome, and others even as late as William of 
Malmesbury, the goddess 1s more or less identified with 
the spirit of evil, as in the case of so much else from pagan 
sources. 

The Aristotelian argument that chance is necessary in 
order to make room for free-will is adopted in a modified 
form by St. Augustine and St. Thomas. Both, however, 
are definite in refusing to accept the figure of the goddess, 
and they agree in pointing out that in the last analysis 
what seems to come from chance has really a proper cause 
of itsown. Fortune may be useful as a name for the causa 
per accidens which Aristotle defined, but it will not be 
ultimately justifiable to delude one’s self into thinking 
that the personified figure has a basis in fact: 

Sed quamuis haec opinio habeat ueram radicem, non tamen bene 
usi sunt nomine fortunae. I]lud enim diuinum ordinans non potest 
dici uel nominari fortuna; quia secundum quod aliquid participat 
rationem uel ordinem, recedit a ratione fortunae. Wnde magis debet 
dici fortuna causa inferior, quae de se non habet ordinem ad euentum 
fortuitum, quam causa superior, si qua sit ordinans. Praetermittit 
tamen inquisitionem huius opinionis, tum quia excedit metas scien- 


tiae naturalis, tum quia infra manifestat quod fortuna non est causa 
per se, sed per accidens.? 


t St. Thomas Aquinas, Opera, ed. Pope Leo XIII, II, 77 (9), Commentaria 
Physicorum Aristotelis. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 17 
And further: 


Considerandum est autem quod si ea quae fortuito uel casualiter 
accidunt, idest praeter intentionem causarum inferiorum, reducan- 
tur in aliquam causam superiorem ordinantem ipsa; in compara- 
tione ad illam causam non possunt dici fortuita uel casualia: unde 
illa causa superior non potest dici fortuna. 


But it is only naive opinion which holds that free 
thought ceases to exist where authority reigns. The 
Church proclaimed authoritative views on comparatively 
few points; on the rest men were allowed to differ. St. 
Thomas’s characteristically sound logic, while it was 
widely representative, was not official. The pagan For- 
tuna continued on her primrose path, from her appear- 
ance in such a work, for example, as the lament of Hilde- 
bert of Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo,— Hildebert was Bishop 
of Le Mans and Tours in the early part of the twelfth 
century,—through the Anticlaudianus of Alain de l’Isle, 
— who was an ecclesiastic of the latter part of the 
twelfth, — down to the Renaissance. The description in 
the Anticlaudianus is, it is true, so confused, varying be- 
tween a picture of the goddess and that merely of a per- 
sonification of the abstract idea (the gifts which Fortune 
bestows), that one is led to conclude that the author did 
not take the figure of an actual deity very seriously. But, 
as far as he has any use for her at all, she reappears in her 
pagan guise. 

A sign that the problem was for many men unsettled 
appears in the fact that some writers retained both For- 
tune and the Christian God, without any precise attempt 
to reconcile the two conceptions. One of the most influ- 
ential figures in mediaeval thought, the remarkable Boe- 


t Ibid., p. 86 (13). 


18 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


thius, of whose words echoes are found in literature for a 
thousand years, sets forth a clear picture of the pagan 
goddess and, at the same time, obviously worships the 
Christian God, without showing us exactly how the two 
may exist together in one universe. While he gives a 
character sketch of Fortuna thoroughly in accord with 
that familiar in classical literature, and almost certainly 
based in large measure on his reading there," he only sug- 
gests a solution of the difficulty, taking his ideas in part 
from Aristotle. “Chance,” we are told, allows for human 
free-will; fate is a servant of God; and chance, growing 
out of hidden causes, is also subject to Divine Providence: 

Licet igitur definire casum esse inopinatum ex confluentibus 
causis in his quae ob aliquid geruntur euentum. concurrere uero 
atque confluere causas facit ordo ille ineuitabili conexione procedens, 


qui de prouidentiae fonte descendens cuncta suis locis temporibus- 
que disponit.? 


An imitation of the Consolation of Philosophy by a Chris- 
tian priest in the twelfth (or early thirteenth) century, 
Henricus Septimellensis, conveys hardly more than a 
similar picture of the pagan deity. A compromise of the 
same kind is found in the long discussion in Albertus 
Magnus, where, as we should expect, the Aristotelian sug- 
gestions are developed more fully.4 | 

It remained for Dante to give poetic reality to what is 
really implicit in the treatment in Boethius. In the fa- 
miliar account of Fortune which it is Virgil’s part to de- 


* Cons. Philos., Il, pr. 1, and the sections that follow. 

Stl Utde Virals Gi ats 

3 De Diversitate Fortunae et Philosophiae Consolatione, ed. Manni, Flor- 
ence, 1730; Italian text, Prato, 1841. 

4 See the Physicorum, Il, tr. ii, cap. x ff. (Opera, II, 83 ff.); also the 
Ethicorum, I, tr. vii, cap. vi (Opera, I, 67). 


PLATE 1 


BOETHIUS AND FORTUNE 


i 


5) 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 19 


liver in the seventh canto of the Juferno,* the capricious 
goddess becomes a ministering angel entirely subservient 
to the Christian God. She still appears to be arbitrary, 
she still receives the scorn and reproaches of mankind; but 
she has her own concealed method in her apparent mad- 
ness, and to all blame she 1s serenely indifferent: 


Con l’altre prime creature lieta 
Volve sua spera, e beata si gode. 


The pagan and the Christian traditions are thus united 
in Dante’s representation. Boethius at times had made 
Fortune seem identical with Fate, and Fate itself as 
changeable as Fortune. Compare in this regard his 
famous figure of the wheel of which God is the centre and 
Fate the rim.? Fate and chance, too, he maintained, were 
subordinate to Providence. In Dante’s portrait, Fortune 
is ““general ministra e duce,” and yet her judgment is 
concealed from the understanding of man; in a sense, 
she is a kind of personification of the Aristotelian causa 
per accidens, except that we are told, 


Questa provvede, giudica e persegue 
Suo regno, come il loro gli altri dei. 


™ Lines 67-96. 

2 Cons. Philos., IV, pr. vi, ll. 21 ff. The idea of the Christian Fortuna 
seems implied in certain representations of the wheel in art. A seal of Tyrnau 
in Hungary of the second half of the xiii century shows Christ in the center of 
the wheel, with the inscription ““Et Deus in Rota.” G. Heider, Das Glhicks- 
rad, p. 119, discusses it as follows: ‘‘Die Bedeutung dieser Darstellung liegt 
klar vor. Der feste Mittelpunkt im Wechsel der irdischen Dinge ist Christ. 
...” He refers to other Christian modifications, with the wheel used for the 
four Evangelists, etc. (cf. below, p. 58, n. 3). Other instances are mentioned 
by J. Sauer, Syméolik, pp. 272 ff. Also see Reproductions from Illuminated 
Manuscripts, British Museum, Series III, 1908, plate xxiv. Cf. the wheel 
described in Les Echecs Amoureux (referred to below, p. 175, n. 2). 


20 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


It is this aspect of her greatness, the fact that she 1s only 
superficially opposed to reason, that brought one touch of 
adverse criticism to the poet. Cecco d’Ascoli wrote: 


In cid peccasti florentin poeta, 
Ponendo che li ben de la fortuna 
Necessitati siano con lor meta. 

Non é fortuna che rason non venca.? 


This is the necessary attitude of the scholastic mind, and 
yet it appears that Dante answers this objection in his 
statement that Fortune’s orderliness is hidden from the 
eyes of man. 

Italian literature subsequent to Dante is, at least in 
part, a history of the development of these differing con- 
ceptions of Fortuna. She is the pagan deity; or she is 
allowed to exist along with the Christian God (which of 
the two was the more vivid probably varied with the 
attitude of individual men); or she is the angelic intelli- 
gence of whom Dante caught a vision. I cannot list here 
the direct imitations of Dante’s account, but what he set 
forth was not satisfactory to everybody. Petrarch refers 
to the goddess many times, and in his study De Remediis 
Utriusque Fortunae he counsels mankind to oppose For- 
tune’s wiles with wisdom and with spiritual devotion. In 
substance the book might have been written by any in- 
tellectual person in the classical period. In fact, the 
model for the work seems to have been Seneca, as Pe- 
trarch himself says, although he adds remedies against 
Good Fortune, whereas most writers in this vein dis- 
cussed only Bad Fortune (Fortuna Mala). But one day 


* L’ Acerba, Rosario’s ed., Lanciano, 1916, p. $3. My own discussion of 
the matter may be consulted: Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, 
vol. III, no. 4, pp. 202 ff. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 21 


Petrarch was forced to declare himself on the problem of 
chance even more explicitly, and what happened is a reve- 
lation of what was going on in the popular mind at this 
period. | 

After King John of France was liberated from his Eng- 
lish prison in 1360, Petrarch spoke before the monarch, 
consoling him for what he had suffered and rejoicing with 
him at his present relief. Perhaps the analogy to the case 
of Boethius sprang to his mind. At any rate he attrib- 
uted all guilt for the King’s experiences to Fortuna, and 
the very mention of her name disturbed his audience. At 
dinner afterward he was asked to give his opinion about 
the goddess; escaping from that predicament through an 
accidental turn of the King’s interest, he was visited in 
his chamber by three doctori, who talked with him from 
sesta to sera." Vive years later Petrarch wrote a letter to 
a friend on the whole problem.” In this he takes the 
orthodox position of the Church Fathers, denying any 
existence to the goddess: 

Io miserabile peccatore, inteso peraltro a cure secolaresche, uden- 
dolo sulla bocca di tutti, e scritto trovandolo in ogni libro, lo ripetei 
mille volte nelle mie opericciuole: e tanto fui lungi dal pentirmene 
che scrissi non ha guari un libro avente per titolo: J rimedi dell’ una 
e dell’ altra fortuna, ove non gia di due Fortune, ma di una sola a due 
faccie tenni lungo discorso. .. . 


Ed io ti rispondo che la Fortuna veramente ho sempre stimato 
esser nulla.... Credesi generalmente che quando accade alcuna 


t For an account of the affair see Barbeu du Rocher,-in Mémoires de 
P Académie des Inscriptions, etc., 2d series, III, 189 ff. A translation of the 
letter (to Pietro di Poitiers) is printed in Lettere Familiari, ed. Fracassetti, 
vol. IV, lib. xxii, lett. 13. For the “tragedy” of King John, see the story in 
Boccaccio’s De Casibus and subsequent translations. 

2 To Tommaso del Garbo, Lettere Senili, ed. Fracassetti, vol. I, lib. viii, 


lett. 3, pp. 468 fF. 


rach THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


cosa senza cagione apparente (ché senza causa veramente non ac- 
cade mai nulla), avvenga per caso, e s’imputa alla Fortuna.? 


A similar situation is found in the pages of Boccaccio. 
In his early works the spirit of what he writes is not un- 
like that of Ovid, and it is not surprising to find the capri- 
cious goddess mentioned on nearly every page, and 
several times discussed at length. She was a convenient 
figure when he wanted someone on whom to put the 
blame for his adversities in love. She fitted neatly into 
the classical apparatus when he was composing an epic; 
and she furnished a theme for the laments of Arcita and 
Troilo when they were speaking the poet’s own passion to 
the Countess Maria. Jove and even the Christian God 
are introduced as well, without apparently much com- 
plicated attempt to reconcile them. But this skepticism, 
like that which obtained during the Empire in Rome, was 
not characteristic of Boccaccio’s later life. Here, it is 
true, the number of references to Fortune is still great, 
but both in the De Casibus and in the De Genealogia 
Deorum the Christian conception seems to be present in 
the author’s mind. In the latter he wrote as follows: 

Lachesi poi cognominata dal fine: percioche anco Iddio ha dato il 


suo fine alle cose c’ hanno a uenire . . . Sono appresso di quelli, che 
uogliono Lachesi esser quella, che noi chiamiamo Fortuna.? 


That he knew Dante’s account is, of course, perfectly 
certain; and his own comment on the passage in the J7- 
ferno, besides showing this, also gives us his real opinion 
on the subject; for here he regards Fortuna as a poetic 
fiction. 


t Lettere Senili,1, 470-472. He refers to the Christian conception, p. 474. 
2 Betussi’s trans., p. II. 


3 Commento sopra Dante (Opere, XI, 151 ff.), pp. 155-156. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 23 


The pagan F ortune, or a kind of compromise, appears 
in the works of Fazio degli Uberti, Burchiello, Frezzi, and 
the novelists Masuccio Salernitano, Sannazaro, and 
others. Frezzi gives us a long passage describing the 
realm of Fortune, and seemingly she is regarded as the 
servant of God, although her function is more diabolic 
than otherwise. Something like the Christian concep- 
tion —or is it the scholastic? —is found in a Ballata 
della Fortuna: 


Fortuna nonn’ é nulla al mio parere, 
anz’ él piacier di Dio in tutte cose.? 


A tournament dramatized the strife of Reason with For- 
tune, and the latter won; for the conflict, instead of being 
settled in the débat which preceded, gave rise to the joust 
itself, where, naturally, Reason was not at a proper ad- 
vantage.’ The pagan goddess plays a conspicuous part 
in the pages of Aeneas Sylvius, as we shall see from his 
account of her home, and in Botardo’s Orlando Innamo- 
rato, where the Fata Morgana borrows traits both from 
her and from Occasio. Alberti, in his treatise De//a 
Tranquillita dell? Animo, follows the tradition from 
Petrarch’s De Remediis, and opposes wisdom and virtue 
to the caprices of chance. Giovanni Pontano, in his book 
De Fortuna, presents nothing more than the scholastic 
doctrine, concluding, ‘‘Fortunam non esse Deum.” 4 


* Quadriregio, vol. I, cap. xiii, pp. 147 ff. 

2 Ed. A. Medin, in J/ Propugnatore, 1889, p. 120. 

3 Ibid., App. 1, pp. 127 ff. 

4 In a suggestive and interesting article on Fortuna in the Warburg 
Vortrige (11, 1 Teil, 1924), A. Doren objects to my classification of the vary- 
ing conceptions of Fortune; he finds it “nicht gliicklich, weil nicht streng 
durchzufiihren” (p. 139, note). Because he fails to observe that the classifi- 


24 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Something like the Christian conception of Dante, with 
the suggestion that Fortune is both angel and devil, how- 
ever, is presented in the discussion of the subject by Pico 
della Mirandola, who quotes from St. Augustine, and 
brings up the old figure of the man discovering a treasure, 
which suggests, and rightly, that this author is a late fol- 
lower of the Aristotelian tradition. On the other hand, 
the pagan idea continues in the work of Politian, Beni- 
vieni, Pulci, Ariosto, and others, until, with the full tide 
of the Renaissance, with its many features so reminiscent 
of the Roman golden age, Fortuna comes into her own 
with as much vitality as ever, defended even on philoso- 
phic grounds in a manner unheard of in ancient Rome. 
To Machiavelli, for instance, she was indispensable, if 
only to personify the forces from which his conception of 
the superman is to wrest his triumph. In the past, he 
maintains, men believed that the world was controlled 
by the Divine Power and by Fortune, and that therefore 
everything might as well be left to chance: 

Al che pensando io qualche volta, mi sono in qualche parte in- 


chinato nella opinione loro. Nondimanco perché il nostro libero 
arbitrio non sia spento, giudico potere esser vero, che la fortuna sia 


cation is philosophical, — as he shows by misunderstanding why I have 
listed the poems in the Carmina Burana as pagan (and his discussion of my 
treatment of the love-poetry and of Pontano shows the same mistake), — he 
does not realize that the method is fundamental and inevitable. On the other 
hand, his study of Renaissance material is somewhat weakened by the fact 
that the idea of man as master of his Fortune appears long before the Renais- 
sance —e.g., in the works of John Gower — and is an outgrowth of the 
classical idea that Fortune aids the brave. A thirteenth-century instance 
has been recently cited by K. Hampe in the Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte, 
XVII (1926), 1 Heft, pp. 20 ff. It is true that the egoistic note found in 
Machiavelli and others is not heard much before their day. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 2a 


arbitra della meta delle azioni nostre, ma che ancora ella ne lasci 
governare |’ altra meta 0 poco meno a noi. 


This curious echo of the Aristotelian discussion, if it is an 
echo, only makes the rest of what Machiavelli has to say 
stand out as a more striking counterpart to the classical 
method and the classical conception. With many scat- 
tered testimonials to Fortune, the great utilitarian de- 
scribes the goddess at length, with an account of her 
dwelling-place and a triumphant paean to her majestic 
sway. Everyone, including Jove, is afraid of her power, 
and to only a few does she give real happiness.? 

“Chi considera bene non pud negare che nelle cose 
umane la fortuna ha grandissima potesta,”’ observes 
another writer of the same general period and of much 
the same temper, Francesco Guicciardini.3 In a signifi- 
cant manner he sets the typically Italian Renaissance 
conception of Virtz against Fortune, as practically one’s 
only resource in dealing with the goddess; that is to say, 
Fortune yields, not to goodness, nor yet to wisdom, but to 
power. As Machiavelli remarked in so many words, the 
goddess is a lady and must be taken by storm. And thus 
the Renaissance welcomes the pagan figure, and gives her 
an appropriate place in its elaborate theology. Like the 
time of Augustus in Rome, it is a restless period, with 
much traffic and discovery, much hazarding of all that 
one had, much toying with strange gods for the very de- 
light of their strangeness, much questioning (with little 
passion for an answer). The goddess of chance admira- 


* Il Principe, cap. xxv. Chapter xv speaks of using one’s strength to 
resist Fortune. 

* Capitolo di Fortuna (Opere, VII, 366 ff.). 

3 Ricordi Politict e Civili, xxx, xxxi (Opere Ined., I, 97 ff.). 


26 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


bly represented both its weakness and its strength. She is 
just the deity for the romantically-minded, for those who 
find life only in flux and change. She represents that con- 
veniently adjustable religion for which certain tempera- 
ments long. 


Ii] 


The survey of the material in the Italian field gives us 
a sufficiently complete picture of what happened to For- 
tune in the Middle Ages. Philosophy tried to annihilate 
her, but poetry was able to keep her, whether in a form 
agreeable to the Christian Church or not. In the Renais- 
sance she comes into full vigor as an appropriate embodi- 
ment of the paganism and superstition of the time. The 
same process takes place in other countries where she is 
known, and to present a detailed study of conditions else- 
where would in general involve mere repetition. Yet by 
this statement I do not mean to imply that the growth in 
other soil was modelled, consciously or not, on the Italian 
plan. In each country differing conditions produced an 
independent life for the goddess; and the similarities 
which do occur are therefore all the more interesting, and 
the undeniably similar trend of the general development 
gains thereby a really profound significance. 

It is unnecessary, however, to repeat here the detail 
that I have printed elsewhere, to which I have already 
made allusion. Here I shall limit myself to pointing out 
some special phases of the development in the French 
and English fields, phases that seem to me to have some 
meaning in relation to the whole point of this chap- 
ter. Apart from that, let it suffice to say that in Old 
French and Middle English the pagan Fortuna survives; 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 27 


that wherever we turn in these fields we find the same 
motifs, the same “‘remedies”’ for her onslaught; and that 
occasionally the Christian denied her existence, or re- 
tained her by means of a figure not unlike that which is 
found in Dante’s Iuferno. The allusions and discussions 
in these literatures are not perfunctory, but show fresh- 
ness and individuality. Furthermore, when the old con- 
ceptions are reproduced, they appear, not as borrowings, 
but as an independent flowering, with a life of their 
own. 

It is true, of course, that there is an interrelation be- 
tween England, France, and Italy. Many of the Latin 
writers of the early part of the period were living in 
France and studying there — Alanus de Insulis, for one 
example, and Albertus Magnus, for another. Petrarch, 
as I have said, was challenged by King John of France 
on the subject of Fortune. Little argument is necessary, 
however, to point out that the closer the contact be- 
tween the two countries the more striking the differ- 
ences in the accounts of the fickle goddess, and the 
more important. 

If one grants, as I think one is really bound to, that 
Dante’s figure of the Christian Fortuna is a remarkable 
conception, at once appealing to the imagination and sat- 
isfying to the intellect, then the reappearance of this 
figure, quite independently, in France and England is still 
more remarkable. In France there is something like a 
suggestion, in the works of Chrestien de Troyes and in the 
Roman du Renart, that God and Fortune do not work in 
Opposition, or without some measure of concord. In the 
Roman, God apparently punishes some sinners on the 
wheel of Fortune: 


28 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 
Or prions le Roy Jhesu-Crist 


Qui pour nous char humaine prist, 
Que de tel roe nous destourgne.* 


Material from Boethius, in the writings of Simund de 
Freine, and extensively in the Roman de la Rose, may 
have helped the development. But next we see in the 
Manekine of Philippe de Beaumanoir, and in a dialogue 
between Fortune and Pierre de la Broche, and in the work 
of Watriquet de Couvin, the idea of the goddess as defi- 
nitely in the service of the Christian God. 

In the Manekine we read that God consents to For- 
tune’s rule of the world.? The dialogue with Pierre de la 
Broche, however, with strong reminiscence of Boethius, 
shows the goddess as doing God’s will and punishing the 
wicked.’ Here Reason calls on Fortune to defend her- 
self against the charges raised by Pierre, but her replies 
simply rebuke Pierre for failure to keep true to God, and 
in general reveal something of the calm of the blessed 
figure in Dante. Watriquet, on the other hand, describ- 
ing not Fortune but Aventure (who really represents the 
same idea), gives a very clear account of the relation be- 
tween God and this capricious deity: 

Frére, on m’apele Aventure, 
En terre m’a Diex establie; 

Au main lever pas ne m’oublie, 
Tantost sui ot je veil aler; 

Je fas le trop haut devaler, 
Nus n’a en mot juste fiance. 


Bien en vois la senefiance 
A mon cors de double figure, 


* Renart le Nouvel (Roman, ed. Méon, IV, 461), ll. 77-79. 
2 Philippe de Beaumanoir, Ceuvres, ed. Suchier, I, 36, ll. 1084 ff. 
3 Monmerqué and Michel, Thédtre Francais, pp. 208 ff. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 29 


Qu’en moi n’a point d’uevre seiire. 
Nus n’i do it estr assetirez, 

Tant soit riches ne eurez 

Ne par fortune aventureus.? 


It will be seen on detailed investigation that the discus- 
sions in the works of these writers do not show the slight- 
est trace of influence from Dante. Indeed, the growth 
shows every indication of being spontaneous and na- 
tural. A little later, in the satiric Roman de Fauvel, the 
Christian Fortune appears again, responsible, we are 
told, for the present unhappy condition of the Church; 
and here she is a daughter 


Du roy qui sans commencement 
Regne et vit pardurablement.? 


Other examples are found in the works of Jean de Condé, 
in an independent fourteenth-century manuscript (de- 
scribed by Gorra), and in Martin le Franc, — in addition 
to the passages already discussed. On the other hand, 
Fortune as a goddess of love, with nothing more than the 
pagan conception, flourishes in French literature: in the 
Panthére d’ Amours of Nicole de Margival, in Les Echecs 
Amoureux, in the works of Guillaume de Machaut, Frois- 
sart, Deschamps, Charles d’Orléans, and elsewhere. 

In England the situation is in many respects similar. 
From its Germanic heritage Old English received the 
figure of a goddess of ruthless and inscrutable destiny in 


1 Li Mireoirs as Dames, \\. 158-169 (Dits, ed. Scheler, p. 6). 

2 Ed. Langfors (Société des Anciens Textes Frangais), ll. 1850 ff. F. von 
Bezold (Das Fortleben der antiken Gotter im mittelalterlichen Humanismus, 
p- 81) finds Fortune as a daughter of the ‘‘gottlichen Geistes” in Heinrich 
of Mailand’s Controversia Hominis et Fortunae (1254), a book that I have 
not seen. 


30 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Wyrd, who, we remember, “ged 4... swa hio scel.”? 
There seems to be little doubt that this figure corre- 
sponded to the Latin idea of Fate, even as the Germanic 
Norns are a convenient equation for the three Fates. 
Fortune became known in England at least as early as the 
West Saxon translation of Boethius, in which Aelfred 
quite properly rendered Fortune the goddess by “woruld- 
séld” and fortune the abstraction by “wyrd.”? Con- 
siderable mention of the figure does not appear, of course, 
until much later, when at length the opportunity to dis- 
tinguish between an ordered fate and a capricious fortune 
was made possible by the actual borrowing of the words 
themselves. Many of the English passages regarding 
Fortune, like the remarkable one in the alliterative 
Morte Arthure, \\. 3250 ff., are suspect, as being at least 
adaptations from the French. John Gower, as we should 
properly suppose, annihilates the goddess, unless he takes 
her as a symbol for astrological influence; Piers Plowman 
presents her simply as the personified abstraction, riches; 
many writers in English and Scottish keep her in the 
pagan figure. In the Book of the Duchesse, possibly in 
order to follow the conventions of Court of Love poetry 
in this point as in all others, Chaucer uses the pagan idea 
to good effect, the inference being that the death of 
Blanche could be due only to the caprice of a heartless 
and irrational deity. After his intensive study of Boe- 


* Beowulf,\. 455. For the situation in Old English, see Jente’s Mythologi- 
schen Ausdriicke im altenglischen Wortschatz, Heidelberg, 1921 (Angi. Forsch., 
vol. LVI), 196 ff. 

? Fortune was, of course, known previously in Roman England. Altars 
dedicated to her may be seen in the library of Durham Cathedral. 

3 Cf. Bruce, Mort Artu, Halle, 1910, p. 291, with regard to some similar 
passages. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE oa 


thius, however, it is especially significant to notice that 
he introduced the Christian figure in the Balade of For- 
tune, without the slightest hint of influence from Dante: 
Lo, th’execucion of the magestee 
That al purveyeth of his rightwisnesse, 


That same thing ‘Fortune’ clepen ye, 
Ye blinde bestes, ful of lewednesse! ! 


Although “Destinee”’ is described in the Knight's Tale 
(ll. 1663 ff.) with obvious indebtedness to the passage on 
Fortune in the Jnferno, Chaucer returns to the Christian 
conception of Fortune herself, with echoes of both Boe- 
thius and Dante, in Troilus and Criseyde, showing, I 
think, that it was Boethius who furnished him with the 
basis for his idea, even while he was impressed with 
Dante’s account. 

Structurally the idea of Fortune as the servant of the 
Christian God has a profound effect on the plot of the 
Troilus. With its many allusions to the operation of fate, 
the story nevertheless does not proceed as a sentimental 
tragedy, in which the characters fall victim to some piti- 
less force external to themselves; but Troilus, unlike his 
prototype in the Filostrato, eventually discovers that his 
sufferings are pretty much the result of his own folly. 
Passages regarding the Christian conception are deliber- 
ately introduced by the poet? to show that Fortune is 
the shepherdess of us poor beasts only under the direction 
of “heighe Jove” (the language distinctly recalling that 
in the Balade), and that therefore the plot does not move 
by chance, but in accordance with an actual if concealed 
plan that does not exclude human free-will. These pas- 

* Lines 65-68. See Essays in Memory of Barrett Wendell, Cambridge, 


1926, pp. 95 ff. I hope to publish a more detailed study of this field later. 
? Troilus, iii, stanza 89; v, ll. 1541 ff. 


Ro THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


sages occur at the two main crises of the story. Describing 
the effect in this isolated fashion may serve to make the 
purpose of the poem seem too sombre, and even heavy: 
Troilus, we remember, laughed at the woe of those who 
wept for his death. The actual result of relieving the 
poem of a sentimental type of fatalism is to take away 
the hopelessness of a setting where the pagan Fortune 
rules, and to show that Troilus is a healthier being when 
he can ridicule his own weakness than when he utters that 
interminable discourse on cruel fate in Book tv." 
Something like the Christian figure appears in the 

works of the faithful and industrious Monk of Bury, John 
Lydgate, when he makes Fortune subject to the goddess 
Juno: | 

For Juno is the tresourere, 

And fortune hir awmonere.? 


Although this is translated from Les Echecs Amoureux,' 
and may mean much or little in itself, it is in harmony 
with other references to a similar figure in the poet’s 
writings.* The pagan figure endures, on the other hand, 
in the lines of Hoccleve and in those of numerous other 
writers, both English and Scottish. At the time of the 
Renaissance in England Fortune is still with us, abun- 
dantly dealt with in the works of Sir Thomas More,’ and 
elsewhere. 

= I have discussed this monologue in detail in an article in the Fournal of 
English and Germanic Philology, XVII, 399 ff., ‘Troilus on Predestination.” 

2 See the whole passage, Reson and Sensuallyte, \\. 1350 ff. 

3 See Sieper’s edition, p. 17. For a discussion of the French, cf. Smith 
College Studies in Modern Languages, vol. IV, no. 4, pp. 19 ff. A synopsis of 
the poem has been printed by Galpin, Romanic Review, XI, 283 ff. 

4 Cf. the Troy Book, ii, 3036 ff. His ideas may have been derived partly 
from Laurent de Premierfait’s translation of Boccaccio’s De Casibus. 


5 His Book of Fortune is printed in Anglia, XXVI, 139 ff. 


PLATE 2 


THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN FORTUNE AND VIRTUE 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF FORTUNE 33 
IV 


For the mediaeval period, then, Fortune was a lively 
and ubiquitous figure, a shape-shifter who could not be 
put down. With the masses the pagan idea survived, ap- 
parently, without much change. The philosophically- 
minded acknowledged the phenomena that gave rise to 
her creation, but, committed as they were to a belief in a 
rational and orderly universe, they attributed these phe- 
nomena to hidden causes and so allowed the goddess no 
real existence. Such a solution, however, could not be a 
convincing summary of experience: nothing is a more 
devout act of faith than the intellectualist’s (or the scien- 
tist’s) belief in a rational universe. One thinks of the 
problem of the buried treasure and the man who comes 
upon it “accidentally.” Naturally there are causes for 
the treasure, as well as for its burial in that particular 
spot; and there is a parallel chain of causes for the man’s 
coming there at that particular time. Yet for the nexus 
between these facts and the effect of the discovery on the 
man’s own career (spiritually as well as materially) what 
is to be said? What can time the discovery so that it will 
not be deeply injurious in the man’s life? Yet if chance 
enters here, where may it not penetrate? The mediaeval 
philosopher took account of this exigency indirectly in his 
theory of hidden causes, the causa per accidens, and the 
omnipotent rational Deity; and yet, even with this expla- 
nation, enough emphasis hardly falls on the experience of 
apparent chance. To this more tangible element the poet, 
therefore, gave full recognition in personifying chance, — 
that is to say, in accepting the personified figure of the 
pagans, — and in making the figure subservient to the 


34 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


rational God. In this way complete account was taken of 
both experience and faith, and reason itself was satisfied. 

While, therefore, the pagan idea managed to. keep a 
fairly large number of devotees, a compromise with Chris- 
tianity was effected for others, and a genuinely Christian 
figure was created, retaining the title and the apparatus 
of the pagan cult. Leading poets arrived independently 
at this conception, and some lesser ones followed in their 
train. For much of the development Boethius was re- 
sponsible, and his suggestions were far-reaching. At the 
time of the Renaissance, therefore, the goddess was still 
available in one form or another, and obviously in her 
pagan guise she was especially acceptable at that time. 
There is evidence to show that even in our own day she 
has persisted with some followers, although, of course, 
under the influence of certain recrudescent forms of 
materialism, the personification is less apt to be popular 
now than the mere abstraction. 

Whether the goddess was ever actually believed in as 
something more than a symbolic creature, at least after 
the Roman period, it 1s really impossible to say. But we 
do know that there were people in the Middle Ages who 
could in terms of a deity conceive of what we call forces; 
and we know also how generally available the figure of 
Fortuna was, attempting in her libertine fashion to suit 
everybody. How far we are really entitled to unite the 
one fact with the other, and to conclude that just so far 
an actual faith in the capricious deity extended, I should 
not dare to conjecture. One may fairly assert, however, 
that all the evidence points to the conclusion that there 
was some faith of that kind in some quarters. What was 
substantially positive in this, and what was in harmony 
with her own truth, Christianity made her own. 


CHAPTER II 


TRADITIONAL THEMES OF FORTUNE IN 
MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 


| the preceding chapters I have found it convenient 
to define three distinct mental attitudes toward For- 
tuna, — the pagan, the attitude of compromise, and the 
Christian, —and have thus practically defined three sepa- 
rate figures of the goddess: the independent ruling power, 
the power which shares the universe with some other force, 
and the power completely subservient to another god. In 
this chapter I need not discriminate sharply among these 
three figures, because it is my purpose to study the com- 
posite portrait of Fortuna in the Middle Ages, to observe 
the establishment and growth of the tradition, not chron- 
ologically but e7 masse, in order to see precisely what was 
the nature of that tradition. In other words, here we are 
not so much concerned with the philosophy of Fortune as 
with her paraphernalia. 

The method of study which I shall pursue will be: (1) 
to establish the conception of Fortuna as a goddess; (2) to 
observe the epithets and technical terms of her cult; (3) 
to depict her general appearance and character as we find 
them described; (4) to determine the limits of her powers 
and the field of her activities; (5) to notice, in connection 
with all these topics, the literary formulae which are 
regularly used in expressing them, or, as I have already 
called these formulae, the ‘“‘themes” of the tradition. 
One result of this study will be to enable us to put to- 


36 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


gether a typical mediaeval account of Fortuna, so that we 
may criticize any particular mediaeval discussion either 
as purely traditional or as strikingly original. We may 
also draw some conclusions as to the nature of the de- 
velopment that gave rise to such elaborate properties and 
accoutrements. 


I 
THe GopDDESs 


Mere personification, or the attribution of a proper 
name, does not imply that Fortuna ts strictly a goddess." 
She is a goddess only while she remains in power as such, 
that is, while she actually bestows. What she bestows, 
what we take as the abstraction “fortuna,” — good for- 
tune, wealth, riches, and the like, — is often personified, 
and this figure may easily be confused with the divinity. 
This abstraction, when personified, is particularly marked 
by the qualities of the gifts. It is typical of persons en- 
dowed with these qualities, and hence may conveniently 
be called a “type.” On the other hand,a symbol as a unit 
of allegory does not attempt to represent the original idea 
by reproducing its characteristics; the goddess should 
not require identification by these means. Fortuna is 
not particularly fortunate while she is meting out her 
gifts. In this way she is more easily distinguishable 
from a type than is such a figure as Justice, who to a 
certain extent must be just. Fortuna is, then, purely 
symbolic. She may not suffer what as a goddess she in- 
flicts, whereas the type must continually suffer reversals 
of that kind. 


t See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 188-190; and above, 
Pp. 17, 30. 


=" 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 37 


Between the two figures of symbol and type, however, 
there is continual danger of confusion; and, when it oc- 
curs, it means that the author did not have a clear idea of 
the deity. Yet there may be confusion in slight details, 
which are worth our attention because, using them as a 
starting-point, we can test the complete descriptions of 
the goddess with more security. Thus even in Ovid we 


find, 


Nostra per aduersas agitur fortuna procellas; 


and in Chaucer, 


She goth upright and yet she halt. 


In one of the Vatican pictures she is represented on the 
sea, with a boat, a sail, and an oar, “car la fortune vient 
du commerce maritime”; but clearly “wealth” 1s what 
is implied by the artist. Again, she is found, involved 
in difficulties, in an emblem picturing a naked figure 
lifted from the sea by a mailed figure. The inscription, 
“Fortuna forti subleuanda Industria,” 4 implies that she 
was sinking before her rescue. In all these cases the 
symbolism can best be explained by interpreting For- 
tuna as “possessions,” “riches,’”’ and so on. The ab- 
stract “fortune” suffers adversity; that is, our riches 
are in poor condition, are sinking, are beaten by the 
winds, are lame. So much for this confusion of type and 
symbol. 

* Tristia, V, xii, §. Cf. Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 171: ‘La Fortune 
exposée a tous les Vents.” 

2 Book of the Duchesse, 1. 622. Cf. Alexander Montgomerie, Ane Invec- 
tione against Fortun, |. 36 (Poems, ed. Cranstoun, 1887, p. 130): “Sho stottis 
at strais, syn stumbillis not at stanis.” 


3 Barbier de Montault, Trai#é, I, 163, § 5. 
4 Achille Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones (1574), symb. li. 


38 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


For our present purposes, the name Fortuna must 
represent the goddess. With this name we have many 
qualifying epithets and adjectives, implying her nature. 
Here is a list of some which form a customary part of the 


tradition: 


amara invidiosa 
aspera laeta 
belle laide 
benigna lubrica 
blind mala 
bona meretrix 
caeca mobilis 
crudel noiosa 
double parjur 
dulcia perfida 
fallace perversa 
favorevole ria 
fera ruinosa 
fickle surda 
incerta traitor 
inconstans tristia 
infortune * ugly 
ingrata vaga 
inimica varia 
iniqua variable 
- instabilis volubilis ? 


t See the play on the verb fortuner in Watriquet de Couvin’s Dis de For- 
tune, ll. 49 ff. (Dits, ed. Scheler, p. 75): desfortunez, fortunez, enfortunez, ren- 
fortunez, desfortune. 

2 Cf. Canter, pp. 72 ff. With these we may note the words which, because 
of themes, are usually involved: assalt, assaut; casus; colpa, coupe; estable, 
stable; fidem, faith; fiel; firm; ludum; miel; moé, moue, mowe; traboccare, tra- 
buchier, etc. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 39 


At least one or more of these words or its cognate enters 
into every literary discussion of the goddess,’ and, follow- 
ing in her train, many of them pass from one language 
into another. These and many others are the technical 
vocabulary of her cult; and the rimes probably kept many 
of them going in pairs. Gathering a number of these ex- 
pressions about her like robes, the goddess sweeps on 
down through the ages. 


VENTURA 


Ventura, or Aventure,is a name that at one time threat- 
ened to replace the name Fortuna. As we have else- 
where noticed,? Ventura receives a treatment similar to 
that of Fortuna herself. Like Fortuna, she turns a wheel, 
and exalts and debases; 3 she guides; + and she is confused 
with Fate or Destiny.® 

Aventure was particularly well received in France. 
She is depicted in the Christian conception of Watriquet 


* For long lists of epithets, see Pliny, Natural History, 11, 22, ‘Inuenit 
tamen inter,” etc., quoted above, p.11; Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, xxi, 103 
(no. 152, st. 5); Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato (1730), p. 16; A. Medin, 
Lamenti, p. 43, ll. 13 f; etc. 

2 Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, IV, 12 ff. Cf. also the 
Roman de Fauvel, ll. 2254-85. Also see Baudouin de Condé, Dits et Contes, I, 
301-302, ll. 967-968. 

3 Brunetto Latini, J] Favoletto, ll. 71 ff; Poeti del Primo Secolo, 1, 515; 
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poesie (1801), I, 169; Van Duyse, Het Oude Ned. Lied, 
Wie by: 

* Poeti del Primo Secolo, 1, 513; Herzhoff, Personif. lebl. Dinge, etc., pp. 
11 f. (finds Aventure is most often connected with ‘‘amener,” “mener,” etc.; 
notice his references). 

5 Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, A. 1465 (cf. 1.1490); Troilus and Criseyde, v, 
1540, ““And thus he dryeth forth his aventure” (cf. the usual “‘dree his 
wierd’’). 


40 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


de Couvin’s Mireoirs as Dames.* Sometimes she goes 
hand in hand with Fortune,? or she may supersede her.3 
At one time Aventure was apparently the more familiar 
term for “the casual,” and was scarcely felt as a proper 
name. When the word got outside of French literature, it 
seems to have meant merely “chance” or “the chances” 
—a good commentary on its significance in French. The 
idea came to be that Fortune deals in aventures.4 Clearly, 
then, Fortune controlled these aventures, and so survived 
any danger of being overcome by the upstart. 


EURE 


As a substitute for Fortune, or at least as a companion, 
Eiire or Maleiire, gained great popularity in France. This 
figure 1s also endowed with power by Watriquet de Cou- 
vin, who helped to give Aventure such great vogue: 


Eiirs sui en terre apelez, 

Qui sert 4 ma dame Fortune, 
Qui ne crient au monde fors une, 
Qui seur lui ait poor ne force 

Ne vertu, ja tant s’i efforce, 

Car elle defforce les fors, 

Les fiers orgueilleus, et met fors 


* Lines $9 ff. (Dits, pp. 3 ff.). Cf. this description with that of Fortuna, 

? Renart le Nouvel (Roman du Renart, ed. Méon, IV, 255), 1. 3247; G. de 
Machaut, Le Dit de?’ Alerion, ll. 4275, 4281 (Geuores, ed. Hoepffner, II, 385); 
Alain Chartier, Ziwores, p. 612; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I, 188. See also 
Chaucer, Clerk’s Tale, E. 812; Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., I, 195 (“Fortune est 
aventure’’). 

3 Simund de Freine, Roman de Philosophie, \. 61 (“Fortune ceo est aven- 
ture’”’), 

“ Gower, Mirour de ?Omme, |. 18270; Lydgate, Troy Book, i, 1420 ff.; 
Dunbar, To Dwell in Court, My Friend, \l. 11 f. (Poems, Il, 98); Cranstoun, 
Satirical Poems, 1, 44, ll. 172-173. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 4I 


Du leur et soi monstre con forte 
Quant l’un grieve et l’autre conforte, etc. 


In Nicole de Margival’s Panthére d’ Amours, Eiirs and 
Mesetirs stand at the entrance to Fortune’s house. The 
author explains that when Fortune is angry Eiirs has no 
power.? By the time of Guillaume de Machaut, Eire, 
now become Bonneiirté, is fairly independent: 


La dame a nom Bonneirté 
Qui tient en sa main Séurté 
En la partie de Fortune; 
Car il n’est personne nesune 
Cui Fortune peiist abatre, 
Se la dame le vuet debatre. 


Bonneiirté controls even Nature. Her duties include the 
bestowal of prosperity in general, the acquisition of 
friends for her favorites, victory over their enemies, and 
so on.? The cult of Etire or Maletire was surprisingly 
large; 4 but here again Fortune was for some reason found 


1 Dis de l Escharbote, \l. 48 ff. (Dits, pp. 398-399). See a reference to 
Eiirs also in his Mireoirs as Dames, ll. 132 ff. (ibid., pp. § f.). 

2 Panthere, \l. 1985 f. Cf. Eur and Maleur as the trumpeters of Fortune 
in Pierre Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles, pp. 30 ff. (cf. p. 42). 

3 Guillaume de Machaut, Le Fugement dou Roy de Navarre, \l. 3851 ff. 
(Guvres, ed. Hoepffner, I, 270.) See also his Remede de Fortune, ll. 2779 ff. 
(ibid., II, 102): ““Have no regard for Fortune; seek Bonneiirté, who gives 
Glory, Delight, Reverence,” etc. Lines 2801 ff. seem to imply that these 
are “les biens de vertu.” 

4 A few references, not in every case to the personification but to import- 
ant uses of the word, may be given. In Perceval /e Gallois (II, 202, ll. 6040 ff.) 
the adjective “maléureus” is used. — Ezire: Adenes le Roi, Li Romans de 
Berte aus Grans Piés, p. 51; L’Escoufie, p. 105, ll. 3510 ff.; Jean le Seneschal, 
Les Cents Ballades, p. 53, 1.1 (“eiir de Fortune’); G. de Machaut, Poésies, 
ed. Chichmaref, I, 52 (xxxvili, 11, Etirs, Fortune), 71 (lvi, 6, Grace, Eiir, 
Fortune), 113 (cxiii, Love, Fortune, Etirs), 150 (clxiv, Eiirs, Fortune), 192 
(cexiii, Fortune, Eur). I have not been able in every case to give the 
references to Machaut in the latest edition (published by the Société des 


42 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


more satisfactory (perhaps because her name covered the 
conception of both fortune and misfortune), and she ac- 
cordingly predominated. Neither Eure nor Maletire ever 
received the imaginative description which was lavished 
upon Fortuna, and they repeatedly threatened to lapse 
into pure abstractions or types. They did, however, con- 
tribute to the vocabulary of the Fortune tradition." 


II 
DEscRIPTION 


Fortune sometimes has two faces, one beautiful, the 
other ugly. In Boccaccio she has great stature and a 


Anciens Textes Frang¢ais); transferring these references and others to later 
editions would have postponed the publication of this volume longer than 
seemed really worth while. See also Froissart, Zuores, III, 216-223 passim 
(Bon Eiir); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 11, 232. — Meseiir: Watriquet de 
Couvin, Tournois des Dames, \l. 488, 1248 (Dits, pp. 247, 270); G. de Ma- 
chaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, I, 63 (xlviii, 11-12), 


Meseiirs m’a mis et enserré 
En crueus las de Fortune si fort, etc. — 


Maletire: Deschamps, Geuores, VI, 222 (mccxxiv); Koch, Christine de Pizan, 
pp. 68-69 (summary of Le Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune; in it Maleur ap- 
pears as a brother of Fortune); Christine de Pisan, Zuores, I, 9 (viii, 15), and 
Le Livre du Chemin, p. 14, |. 320; Alain Chartier, Zivores, pp. 365 (remedy of 
courage, refers to Seneca and to Boccaccio’s ‘“‘cas des nobles”), 584 (the 
same); Raynaud, Rondeaux, p. 2 (“De par Maleur qui tresfort me fortune”). 

t Jean de Garenciéres, Vous m’avez, ed. A. Piaget, in Romania, XXII, 477, 
st. ix, “Fortune la maleureuse”’; Lydgate, Troy Book, i, 3169 f., 


Right as ferforth as Fortune wil hym Ewre, 
What so be-tide of his aventure, 


and iv, 5999, “grace and ewre and hap of olde fortune”; cf. Lydgate’s Pi/- 
grimage of the Life of Man, |. 131, “swyche grace & Eur.” “Felicity” seems 
to be an English attempt to render Eiire: see Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, 
ili, 1691 (cf. 1. 1714); Lydgate, Iroy Book, 11, 3201-3204; iv, 276-278; Sir 
Gilbert Hay’s Manuscript, 1, 65 (Buke of the Law of Armys, pt. ii, cap. xv), 
“‘warldly fortune na felicitee”; The Complaynt of Scotlande, p. 13, ll. 31-32. 


rs 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 43 


strange figure, her eyes are burning and seem to threaten, 
her face is cruel and horrible, her long thick hair hangs 
over her mouth. Elsewhere we find that she changes her 
countenance toward us,” and this change is figured in two 
separate faces,3 one of which may be black, the other 
white.4 The idea of Fortune’s change in mood is symbol- 
ized in her smile or frown.’ When in bad humor she 


* De Casibus (lib. vi, cap. 1), p. 146. For her great stature, cf. Frezzi, 
Quadriregio, 1, 134 (lib. ii, cap. x), ll. 4 ff.; Roman de Fauvel, \l. 2328-2331 
(reminiscent of Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. i, and of the I/iad, iv, 439-444); 
Chaucer, Hous of Fame, \l. 1369-1375. Cf. plate 10, below. 

2 Boccaccio, Teseide, 1, 138 (Opere, IX, 55); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere 
(1825), I, 78; Lydgate, 4/bon and Amphabel, iii, 494-495; also Troy Book, 
ili, 2722, cf. 4079; iv, 1088-1089. 

3 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. 1, 31; Bocace des Nobles Maleureux 
(Couteau, Paris, 1538), fol. xlvi¥°, drawing at head of bk. iii, ch. i; Cousin, 
Livre de Fortune, pl. 25; Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 4 (quotes 
Boethius’s phrase); G. de Machaut, Remede de Fortune, ll. 2408 ff.; Pischedda, 
Canti Popolari, p. 39. Cf. plate 1, above. 

4 See Fortune as a negress, Du Sommerard, Les Aris au Moyen Age, 
Album, vol. II, ser. 4, plates 37, 40. With face half black and half white, 
Cousin, Livre de Fortune, pl. 27; Piaget, Martin le Franc, p. 178; Albertus 
Magnus, Opera, II, 85 (PAysicorum, lib. ii, tr. 11, cap. x1, “dimidium nigrum & 
dimidium album propter eufortunium & infortunium’’). See also Boccaccio, 
Teseide, vi, 1, |. 5; Frezzi, Quadriregio, 1, 149, |. 15; Lorenzo de’ Medici, 
Poemi, ed. Carabba, p. 120; Roman de Fauvel, \l. 2163-2164; Watriquet de 
Couvin, Mireoirs as Dames, \l. 59 ff. (Dits, p. 3, Aventure); Pierre de la 
Broche (Monmerqué and Michel, Théétre Frangais, p. 209, st. 4); De Guille- 
ville, Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges (c. 1500), fol. Ixvii (Fortune is half 
white and half black). See also Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, |. 316; Pierre 
Michault, La Dance aux Aveugles, p. 30. 

5 SMILE: Bocace des Nobles Maleureux (Couteau), fol. cxxiii, drawing. 
Cf. Hildebert de Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 1418), 

eiisere.,.fata’; ino. Tutte le Opere, 1, 303 (Sofonisba, |. a and Italia 
Liberata, ce 244; Ariosto, I Cingue Canti, II, lxii; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 
II, 130; etc. — Frown: Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, 1. 4250, and Troy Book, 
ill, 4221; v, 532; Sir William Mure, Works, I, 16 (1. 26, “Let fortoune froune, 
the world invy, hir smyle will me reviue”). Sometimes the sad face is weep- 
ing: see Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 16; G. de Machaut, 


44 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


makes a face (moé) at us. Fortuna is blind,? or more 
often blindfolded,’ to show that she has no regard for 
merit. Yet sometimes her eyes appear, and very expres- 
sively, as when one of them weeps and the other laughs.‘ 

Her hands, too, betray her nature. She is light- 
fingered in her ability to take back again; she has many 
hands.’ As her face is divided in significance, so her 
hands, right and left, apparently mean good and evil 
fortune respectively.° 


Remede de Fortune, \\. 990 ff. (cf. the variation in a picture of a divided face, 
ll. 1161 ff.). 

t Philippe de Beaumanoir, Fehan et Blonde, |. 2509 (Géuvres, Il, 79); 
Girart de Rossillon, \. 448; Le Petit Traittiet (Pierre Michault’s Dance aux 
Aveugles, p- 233); Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iv, st. 1; Lysants Troy 
Book, 11, 24, 4262-4263. 

2 Boetitan, Cons. Philos., I, pr. i, 31; Henricus sioimeleeen Trattato, 
1730, p. 16; A. Medin, Lamenti, p. 43, ll. 13 f.; Boccaccio, Ameto (Zuvres, 
XV, 122); Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, Album, vol. II, ser. 4, 
pl. 40; etc. 

3 Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, Album, vol. II, ser. 8, pl. 30 
(drawing of Boethius from a MS. of 1492; also in Molinier’s Manuscrits et 
Miniatures, p. 289); Roman de la Rose, \l. 6196 ff.; Bourdillon, Early Editions 
of the Roman de la Rose, p. 110, §40; Scarlattini, Homo Symbolicus, Il, 70 
(“‘ligatos ...oculos”); Piaget, Martin le Franc, p. 178, n. 2. Cousin has 
seventeen blindfolded figures; the bandage is thin in most cases, showing 
Fortune’s eyes. See also Weinhold, Gliicksrad und Lebensrad, pl\. 1; Boll, Die 
Lebensalter, Abb. 4; and Pierre Michault, La Dance aux Aveugles, p. 30. 

4 See the burning eyes, Boccaccio, De Casibus (lib. vi, cap. 1), p. 146. Note 
the contrast in the expressions of the eyes, G. de Machaut, Remede de For- 
tune, ll. 1161 ff.; Roman de Fauvel, ll. 1917 ff. 

5 “Levi manu,” Poliziano, Prose Volgari, p. 240, ll. 49-50; “who can 
evade the hands of Fortune?” Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 135; she has “a 
hundred hands,”’ idid., p. 146 (also Bocace des Nobles Maleureux, fol. cxxiii). 
See the drawing in Terient s Munich MS., pl. xviii (six hands); and plate 10 
in the present book. 

6 See the classical idea in “‘ambigua manu,’ ' Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 301 
(John of Altaville). In Alanus de Insulis, Fortuna shifts her hands on the 
wheel to rest them (Anticlaudianus, VIII, i, Migne, vol. CCX, col. 560). In 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 46 


Other features in the description of Fortuna we shall 
observe in a later chapter — as, for instance, her forelock 
and baldness when she appears as Occasio.' Sometimes, 
however, she has flowing hair. She has wings, because 
she is fleeting. In art her posture may have some sig- 
nificance. We find her standing on a ball,4 and on a 


Durrieu’s drawing (see note above) one of the left hands is on the wheel. See 
Fortune, \l. 1057 ff. In Watriquet de Couvin’s Mireoirs as Dames, |. 94, 
Aventure puts her right arm on the author’s neck. See Cousin’s plate 199, 
where Fortune’s left hand is on Death’s right arm, which moves the wheel. 

t See below, pp. 116 f. 

2 See Fregoso, Dialogo di Fortuna, title-page; cf. Boccaccio, cited above, 

p- 43, n. I (see plate 10, below), and see many of Cousin’s drawings. 
3 See Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symbols xxiii, cxi; Solorzano, Em- 
blemata, p. 32; Pontano, Carmina, 1, 66 (Urania, 11, 1032); Cousin, Livre de 
Fortune, plates 15, 21, 31, 33, 67, 69, 77, 115, 123, 135, 167, 171, 173, 175) 177 
(she has no feet in plate 21; cf. Adrian Junius, Emblemata, 1565, p. 32); 
Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 134, 1. 2. See wings on the feet of Occasio, Alciati’s 
Emblemata (Paris, 1536); cf. Cousin’s plates 17, 115. 

4 See Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, plates 1, 15, 81, 105, 115, 151, 173, 175, 
193, 199; insome of his other drawings (69, 123, 129, 141, 147) Fortune either 
sits on a globe or has one in her hand or near her; in plate 31 her elbow rests 
on one. At least one of his drawings is said to have come from Roman sculp- 
ture (see his preface, pp. 3-4, and cf. p. 33, nos. 141, 143, 145), and obviously 
the others belong to a period earlier than 1568. For the globe, see also Al- 
ciati’s ““In Occasionem” (emblems, Augsburg, 1531, sig. A8,— ed. Green, 
Fontes Quatuor, 1870 — and see a slightly different representation in the 
Padua edition, 1626, p. 179), and his “Ars Naturam Adjuvans” (Venice, 
1546, sig. Fii, — ed. Green, as above, — and Lyons, 1551, p. 107, ed. Green, 
Flumen Abundans, 1871); Fregoso’s Dialogo (1531), title-page; Adrian Ju- 
nius’s Emblemata (1565), p. 32; Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, 1574, symb. 
111 (cf. 23, 132); Mirrour of Maiestie (1618), ed. Green and Croston, 1870, 
pl. 23 (after p. 63); Picinelli’s Mundus Symbolicus (1680), I, 155 (lib. iit, 
cap. xix, 46, description). Schoonhoven (Emblemata, 1618, emb. 5) represents 
Fortune with one foot on a globe and the other on an upright wheel (Cousin’s 
figure, 115, “Fortuna Volubilis,” has one on a globe and the other on a flat 
wheel, with a little ball in one hand and a little wheel in the other, each ball 
and each wheel being equipped with wings). Solorzano (Eméblemata, 1653, 


46 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


wheel,' positions of course symbolic of her unsteadiness. 
She has an unpleasant reputation for being unclean, with 
a more or less constant reminiscence of the “whited 
sepulchre.”’? Other points of her description will occur 
as we go on. | 

As to her garments, her costume is characteristically 
changeable and differs from one writer to another. Boc- 
caccio gives her ‘“‘mollisque cutis, roseus color, ac pur- 
purea uestis.” Also he refers to her robe of many colors.’ 


Lydgate takes this touch in his Fall of Princes: 


Her habite was of manifolde colours, 

Watchet blewe of feyned stedfastnes, 

her gold alleyed lyke sunne in watry showres 
meint with light grene for change & doublenes 

A pretens red drede meint with hardines, 

White for clennes like sone for to fayle 

Feynte blacke for mourning, russet for trauayle.! 


In his Assembly of Gods we find her gown of “gawdy 
grene chamelet” of changeable colors. Another descrip- 
tion, this time of Aventure’s costume, is given by Watri- 
quet de Couvin in his Mireoirs as Dames: ® 


Ses vestemens n’lert pas entiers, 
Mais de parcon mout tres diverse: 


p- 32) shows her with each foot on a globe, two wings on each foot, and a 
wheel in her hand. 

t Instances are given in note §, pp. 148 f., below. 

2 See the origin of the idea in Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. v, 85 ff. See 
Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 16 (“surda’’); Fregoso, Dialogo di 
Fortuna, cap. iv, sig. A7¥° (““verme ha sempre dentro”); Chaucer, Book of the 
Duchesse, 1. 629. 

3 De Casibus, III, 1, p. 60. The robe of many colors is found on p. 146 
(VI, 1). 

4 VI, i, st. 7 (fol. cxliti”® of 1554 ed., cxxxiv of 1558 ed.). 

5 Lines 320-321. See Roman de la Rose, \l. 6146 ff. Note the Morte 
Arthure (allit.), ll. 3250 ff., and the Kingis Quair, stanzas 159-160. 

6 Especially lines 84 ff. The full description is found in lines 75 ff. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 47 


Noire iert a l’esclen lez et perse, 
Blanche au destre con fleurs de lis, 
Du resgarder yert fins delis. 
Vermeille ot la face con rose: 
Onques ne vie plus belle chose 

Ne plaine de si grant bonté. 


In manner Fortune is naturally both kind and unkind; 
we hear of her placid face * and her bland air,? as well as 
of her stormy appearance? and her truculent ‘+ and 
threatening § attitude. 

In character she is proud,* subject to wrath,’ and con- 
sequently vindictive and malign.* In effecting her will 
she is deceitful and dishonest.’ Does she ever feel shame 
and pity?” She sometimes flatters,™ but she is in general 


™ Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 39 (“‘pauxillum placido vultu”’). 

2 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. i, 7; Hildebert, Migne, CLXXI, col. 1419; 
Petrarch, Africa, i, 134; Lydgate, Minor Poems, ed. MacCracken, I, 28, st. 6. 
Aiso Cousin, pl. 105. 

3 Boccaccio, Filocopo, ii (Opere, VII, 132). 

* Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxii, 186. 

5 Gower, Cronica Tripertita, i1, 6. 

6 Charles d’ Orléans, Poésies, II, 154-155; Roman de la Rose, |. 6575. 

7 Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 96, 153; Masuccio Salernitano, J/ Novellino, 
p. 263; Benoit de Ste. Maure, Roman de Troie, 11, 274-275, ll. 13094 f. 

8 Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 15-16, Filocopo, iii (Opere, VII, 247), Donne 
Famose, p. 198 (cap. Ixiii); Petrarch, Africa, vii, 338; Alain Chartier, Zuores, 
p- 394 (“bat ses paulmes, quant il meschiet a grans Seigneurs’’); the anony- 
mous Débat de Lomme Mondain et du Religieux (Pierre Michault’s Dance aux 
Aveugles, p. 314); Villon, Guores, ed. Lacroix, p. 90; Chaucer, Monk’s Tale, 
B. 374° (cf. Melusine, |. 201, she is glad to do ill); Chaucer, Troilus and Cri- 
Seyde, iV, St. I. 

9 A, Medin, Lamenti, p. 43, ll. 13 f. (“‘mendace’ )s Boccaccio, Fiammetta, 
viii (Opere, VI, 198), “gli antichi inganni della fortuna’’; Ariosto, Rime e 
Satire, p. §5 (canz. iii); Pontano, Carmina, II, 393 (Eridanus, II, xxxi, 25-26, 

“insidias””); Roman de la Rose, |. 6 578. 

© Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. iv, 63-64; Reels De Casibus, p. 165. 
Piry: Petrarch, Africa, vii, 880 fF; Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxi, 82; Gower, 
Vox Clamantis, a 179-182; Machiavelli Capitolo di Fortuna eee VII, 367). 

 Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. i, 13; Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 


48 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


such an envious creature that authors are fond of dwell- 
ing on this idea. She envies any man’s prosperity and 
deprives him of it.t In satisfying her desire she is thor- 
oughly unjust and favors the undeserving.? She is there- 
fore quite irrational.3 Inconstant she is of course; this 
trait is made so much of, indeed, and is treated in such a 
variety of ways that it will form our next general topic. 

Certain relatives of Fortune are mentioned. Alanus de 
Insulis makes Nobility the daughter of Fortune; 4 ac- 


1730, p. 13 (“blandifero”); Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 96, 269; Teseide, v, 55. 
See above, p. 47, n. 2. 

* Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. 111, 36-37; Boccaccio, Decameron, IV, 1 
(Opere, II, 153); De Casibus, pp. 43 (“‘felicis impaciens”’), 98; also Fi/ocopo, 
1, i, 111 (Opere, VII, 69,152, 262), and Fiammetta, i (idid., V1, 4, 12); Petrarch, 
Bucolicum Carmen, p. 154, |. 381; Masuccio, [/ Novellino, pp: 378, 442; Al- 
berti, Opere, V, 360 (egl. 1); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xx, 45; L’Escoufle, p. 
133, ll. 4466 ff.; Philippe de Beaumanoir, Fehan et Blonde, \l. 549, 1629 ff. 
(uvres, II, 20, 52); Christine de Pisan, Zuores, I, 8 (vii), 9 (viii, 15 f., “Me- 
seur’’); Gower, Mirour de l’Omme, \l. 26422 ff.; Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, ll. 
887 f., and Iroy Book, i, 750 f.; Melusine, ll. 3986 f. 

2 Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, met. v, 33-34; Baehrens, Poetae Latini 
Minores, IV, 148, no. 145; Petrarch, Bucolicum Carmen, p. 135, ll. 81 ff.; 
Roman de la Rose, ll. 6188 ff.; Alex. Montgomerie, 4ne Invectione against 
Fortun, ll. 10 ff. Contrast Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, Il, 
326 (the Christian Fortune, who refutes all this slander). 

3 For the remedy of prudence, and the opposition of Reason against For- 
tune, see Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, I11, 197, 207, 217-218, 
etc. The idea of the remedy is, of course, the opposition of reason to For- 
tune’s unreason. See drawings in Bourdillon’s Early Editions of the Roman 
de la Rose, p. 110, §40 (Raison crowned, pointing to blindfolded Fortune), 
and Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 83, ‘La Raison et la Fortune sont rarement 
d’Accord.” See Reason crowned and also Fortune (xv-century drawing in 
MS. of a French version of Petrarch’s De Remediis), in Du Sommerard’s Les 
Arts au Moyen Age, Album, vol. II, ser. 4, plates 37, 38, 39. For the remedy 
of prudence, see Weinhold, Glicksrad und Lebensrad, p. 4, inscription. In the 
Chevalier Errant the traveller visits Fortune after leaving Reason: ‘Gorra, 
Studi di Crit. Lett., pp. 44745. Cf. plate 2, above. - 

4 PI: VII, viii (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 557). Cf. Roman de la 
Rose, 1. 6591 (“ sentillesce ?): Petit de Julleville (Histoire de la Littérature 

A 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 49 


cording to another view her father was Justice,* and from 
Fregoso we learn that her parents were Human Judgment 
and Opinion.? 

III 


FICKLENESS 


As we have seen in the description of Fortuna, much 
detail is given to symbolizing her inconstancy. On the 
whole, there is an average ratio of about five to three 
between the passages in which she appears unfavorable 
and those in which she is kindly; and very likely this 
average gives a little too much credit to favorable For- 
tuna, for the goddess is chiefly called on in cases of objec- 
tion to her manner of doing things. Hence our usual op- 
timistic interpretation of the abstract “fortune” cannot 
come from the name of the goddess. 

Fortune is highly variable and scarcely knows her own 
mind. She is in doubt;% she is sometimes asleep, but 
wakes up when she pleases; + she goes along changing her 
style,* or turning her face like a weathercock.® Her in- 
constancy is so universal a theme? that we must study 
the various motifs which symbolize it. 

Francaise, Moyen Age, II, 200) notes that the Roman de Fauvel makes Vaine 
Gloire a bastard daughter of Fortune. Cf. Cousin, pl. 27 (described on his 
p- 20). 

t See Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 131. Cf. the Roman cult, Fortuna 
Primigenia, daughter of Jupiter. See the Roman de Fauvel, \\. 2166 ff.; and 
cf. below, p. 61. 2 Dialogo di Fortuna, sig. B 3°°. 

3 Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 164; Gower, Cronica Tripertita, iii, 189 ff. 

4 Villon, Quvres, ed. Lacroix (Poésies Attribuées), p. 180. 

5 Petrarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, II, 224 (Trionfo della Morte, i, 135); 
Poesie Ital. Ined., Il1, 375, last line. 

© Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, I, 326, ll. 31-32. 


7 See Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 7; Petrarch, Vite d. Vomini, P, 319; Gower, 
Cronica Tripertita, 11, 29, and Confessio Amantis, ii, 2440 ff., vii, 3431 fF.; 


xe) THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Since Fortuna is deceitful, there is probably no faith in 
her; * he is a fool who trusts in her.?, For her wheel can- 
not stop: she would cease to be Fortuna if she ceased to 
be changeable. Her moves are sudden and, of course, 
unexpected.§ 

Her changeableness leads inevitably to a comparison 
with the moon. As the moon varies from day to day, and 
as it controls the shifting tides, so Fortuna ceaselessly 
changes her aspect and turns the tide of mankind.° Her 


Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 311; v, 2432. In Floire et Blancefior, \l. 2252-2254, 
Fortune changes seven times between “prime” and “‘none.” In Cousin’s 
plate 53 she holds a chameleon in her left-hand. 

* Petrarch, Africa, v, 16 f. (“dum fortuna fidem tenuit”’), 134 (“Fortuna 
mihi nota fides”); also Vite d. Uomini, I?, 567; Boccaccio, Rime, xxxv, I 
(Opere, XVI, 64, “‘crede la fortuna”); Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 149, ll. 10 ff. 

2 Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., 1, 198; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chich- 
maref, II, 497, 1.1; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 1, 74; Melusine, ll. 272-273; 
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iv, st. 1; Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 2300-2303, 
3201-3202, 3206 (cf. i, 3190). For a “Note on Folsifie,” see G. C. Keidel, 
Mod. Lang. Notes, X, 146 ff. 

3 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. i, 56 ff.; Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. 
Carducci, 1863, p. 384, 1. 36 (Fortune’s wheel will stop before Lorenzo de’ 
Medici’s fame ceases); Roman de la Rose, |. 6434; Lydgate, Troy Book, iv, 
1078. 

4 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. 1, 57 f.; Chaucer, Troi/us and Criseyde, i, 
848-849; Voigt, Plorilegium Gottingense (Roman. Forschung., II, 311), no. 
333: 

5 Orderic Vital, in Bouquet’s Recuei/, XII, 723, C-D; Henricus Septimel- 
lensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 13 (“quare subito”); Boccaccio, Decameron, V, 1 
(Opere, III, 27, 29); also Filocopo, iii (ibid., VII, 286), and De Casibus, p. 271; 
Sannazaro, Opere, p. 428; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, III, vii, 59; Chrestien 
de Troyes, Erec und Enide, ll. 2785 ff.; Robert of Avesbury, ed. Hearne, p. 
258 (“‘auferet hora brevis”); Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iv, 384-385. 

© See Carmina Burana, ed. Schmeller, p. 1. Cf. Novati, Carmina Medii 
Aevi, p. 44, st. vi; Dante, Paradiso, xvi, 82-84; Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, 
xi, 8; Pischedda, Canti Popolari, p. 39; Poesie Ital. Ined., IV, 301, 310; 
Simund de Freine, Roman de Philosophie, ll. 115 ff. (cf. his Vie de St. Georges, 
ll. 107 ff.); Roman de la Rose, |. 4799 (eclipse of Fortune), cf. 1. 5371; G. de 


4 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE Ga 


frailty is also indicated by a comparison with glass: she is 
both frail and brittle in temperament.t Her fickleness, 
too, includes her treachery. Her face may smile, but she 


Machaut, Remede de Fortune, \l. 956 ff.; also his Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 
477, 1. 89, and his Livre du Voir-Dit, p. 355, ll. 8732 ff.; Christine de Pisan, 
Géuores, 1, 13 (xii); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, II, 220 (ccxxii); Gower, Vox 
Clamantis, ii, 1§1-152 (cf. Carmina Burana, p. 1); Lydgate and Burgh’s 
Secrees of the Old Philisoffres, p. 39, \l. 1208-1209; also Lydgate’s Reson and 
Sensuallyte, \l. 47-48; Alex. Montgomerie, Ane Invectione against Fortun, |. 
10. Lydgate is influenced by Fortuna in his pictures of Lucina: see his 
Balade made at the Departyng of Thomas Chaucyer on Ambassade in to 
Fraunce (Modern Philol., 1, 333); and his Troy Book, ii, 5613 ff., 


Now ful of ligt, now hornyd pale is sche, 
Lady of chaunge and mutabilite, 
pat selde in on halt hir any tyme. 


For the Fortune-moon theme, cf. Boll, Die Lebensalter (relation of the 
planets to the seven ages, and the seven ages to Fortune’s wheel). See Gower, 
Cronica Tripertita, iii, 228, ““Est rota fortune quodamodo regula lune.” Cf. 
Furnivall, Political, Religious, and Love Poems, p. 265. Also in Wackernagel’s 
Ghicksrad und die Kugel des Gliicks (in his Kleinere Schriften, I, 251), the re- 
lation of the wheel to the moon is discussed. Tatlock (Astrology and Magic 
in Chaucer's Franklin’s Tale, Kittredge Anniversary vol., pp. 341-342) 
quotes Roger Bacon as saying that the moon is of most power in nigromancy. 
I have heard of a modern Basque proverb, “Wind, women, and fortune 
change like the moon.” 

t See Werner, Beitrage, p. 3, no. 2, 1. 18 (“‘fragilis”); Boethius, Cons. 
Philos., Il, met. iii, 15 (“‘fortunis caducis’”’); Baehrens, Poetae Latini Mi- 
nores, 1V, 148, no. 145, |. 13 (“fragilis”); Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, 111, 
820 (“brotel wele”); Lydgate, Zroy Book, 111, 4225; Hoccleve, Regement of 
Princes, |. 61; Solorzano, Emblemata, p. 32, emb. v, inscription, ‘“‘ Fortuna 
Vitrea Est” (see the following commentary, p. 38, which quotes from Ter- 
tullian’s Apologeticus, I, xxxiii, and refers to Lipsius and to Schoonhoven’s 
emblem No. 60); Cousin, Livre de Fortune, pl. 55, ““La Fortune de Verre.” 
See the cap of glass which Chaucer’s Fortune fits on her victim, Troilus and 
Criseyde, v. 469; and Monk’s Tale, B. 3562. Cf. the ice-figure in Carmina 
Burana, p. 1 (“‘dissolvit ut glaciem”); for Fortune’s “slippery solace,” which 
dissolves like ice in fire, see John Stewart of Baldynneis, Roland Furious, xi, 
125-126 (Poems, II, 83); and note the house of ice in the Panthére d’ Amours 
of Nicole de Margival (see below, pp. 133 f.). 


52 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


stings just the same, and thus she resembles a serpent * or 
(even better) a scorpion.? | 

As we thirst for her gifts,3 so Fortune gives us sweet 
and bitter to drink, by turns honey and gall.4 She bor- 


™ See the serpent in the symbolism of Fortuna Panthea, noticed in 
Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 136. Scarlattini (Homo 
Symbolicus, I, 10) has an emblem of a youth dedicating himself to For- 
tune (‘‘haec uero adolescentis collo Leonis caput inserebat, tum etiam 
caput serpentis, & monstruosi praeterea animalis cujusdam”). Cf. Henricus 
Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 13 (“Est fortuna mihi serpente Neronior 
omni,” etc.); Froissart, Géuores, III, 213 f., ll. 26-27 (“pointure de vipere 
Ou bas estage de sa roe”); Christine de Pisan, Qvvres, I, 8 (“Ta pointure 
trés venimeuse”’). 

2 See Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse, 1. 636, and Skeat’s note (Oxford 
Chaucer, I, 479) referring to the Ancren Riwle and to Vincent of Beauvais; 
see also the Merchant’s Tale, E. 2057-2058; Pierre de la Broche (Monmerqué 
and Michel, TAéétre Francais, p. 211), “Escorpie de venin plaine . . . oint 
devant et point derriere”; Rutebeuf, @uores, I, 98, |. 109 (“oins devant & 
poins derriére’”’); G. de Machaut, Remede de Fortune, ll. 931 (“‘viper’’), 990 
(she anoints and stabs). Cf. Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 3314, ‘“Feyth in hir face 
& fraude ay in Pe tail.” 

3 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, met. 11, 18; Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 
151; cf. the Pear/, 1. 132 (“Hyttez to haue ay more & more”). 

4 Cf. William of Malmesbury’s “hydromellum” (Gesta Regum, 1, 230, 
§189), which according to his story was offered to the goddess of the pagans. 
For Fortune’s drink for mankind, see Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, 
p. 4 (‘‘mellea felle,” etc.); Petrarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, I], 220 (Trionfo della 
Morte, i); Boccaccio, Filocopo, iv (Opere, VIII, 14); Alberti, Opere, III, 200 
(I/ Teog., i). See Bembo, Rime, p. 184; Baudouin de Condé, Li Prisons 
a’ Amour, |. 880 (Dits et Contes, 1, 298). See the streams of Fortune in Alanus 
de Insulis: “Very sweet water hath the one, and honeyed cups it giveth. With 
its honey it seduceth many, and they that drink the waters do thirst for them 
the more,” etc. (Anticlaudianus, VII, viii, Migne, vol. CCX, col. 558). See, 
further, Roman de la Rose, ll. 6002 ff.; G. de Machaut, Remede de Fortune, ll. 
2412 ff. 2516, 2518; Alain Chartier, Quores, pp. 632-633 (the two streams 
troubled by Fortune); René d’Anjou, Geuvres Completes, III, 9 (‘fontaine de 
Fortune’); Chaucer, Monk’s Tale, B. 3537 (“fortune hath in hir hony 
galle”); Lydgate, Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, 1. 25. Cf. with all this the 
two fountains in Sicily, “the one of which had the property of turning barren 
things into fruitful, the other of turning fruitful things into barren” (Gesta 


' 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 53 


rows from Jupiter the two urns of good and evil,t and 
makes them her own.? Lydgate, following Les Echecs 
Amoureux, gives Fortune two tuns in her cellar, one con- 
taining prosperity, one adversity: the former, which is 
delicious, creates false delight and increases thirst; the 
latter is full of bitterness. Since the Fortune of this 
poem is practically a goddess of love, the tuns are easily 
transformed to love-tuns, and so they are in Gower. 
Perhaps related to this idea is the theme of Fortune’s 
buckets, which, however, seems rather to derive from 
scales‘ or from the see-saw effect of rising and falling per- 
sonages on the wheel.® Yet there is some suggestion as to 


Romanorum, ccliii, in the Latin): Herrtage, The Early English Versions of the 
Gesta Romanorum, London, 1879, EETS., Extra Series, No. 33, p. 537. 

t See Iliad, xxiv, 527 f.; Roman de la Rose, \l. 6836 ff.; Gower, Confessio 
Amantis, vi, 330 ff.; Lydgate, Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, \l.176-177. Cf. 
Cousin’s plate 125; and see the two vats held by the king in J. Sauer’s Sym- 
bolik, p. 273. 

2 In Pierre de la Broche (Monmerqué and Michel, Thé@tre Francais, p. 211) 
Fortune is called ‘“‘Vessiaux plains de mal et d’amer.” Boethius puts the 
reference to Jove’s vessels into the monologue of Fortune (Cons. Philos., Il, 
pr. ii, 38 ff.; and note the following “quid si a te non tota discessi?””). The 
Roman de la Rose makes Fortune taverner of Jupiter and his tuns (see lines 
6836 ff., tuns of wine and wormwood). 

3 See Lydgate, Reson and Sensuallyte, \l. §0 ff., and for further parallels 
see Sieper’s note, II, 78. In Reisch’s Margarita Philosophica, lib. viii, cap. 
xvi, there is a drawing of Fortune holding two goblets, one inverted with the 
contents spilling out. 

4 Confessio Amantis, vi, 325 ff., cf. 76 ff. (the tuns and the drunkenness 
of love; Cupid is butler). See Froissart, Zuores, 1,21 (Le Paradys d’Amours, 
ll. 677-678); Lydgate, Fabula Duorum Mercatorum, ed. Schleich, ll. 446-447; 
Gavin Douglas, King Hart, canto 1, last line (Works, I, 100), “Dame Venus 
tun.” 

5 Cf. the golden scales in Paradise Lost, iv, 997 ff. 

6 Cf., for example, Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes, |. 1132 (“The ton ascend- 
eth, that other hath a fal’’). For the see-saw, cf. Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, 


pl. 33. 


54 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the contents of the buckets. The figure seems to have 
been well known and is certainly often used.? 

Naturally, when one has once enjoyed the favors of 
Fortune and then feels her frown, one’s “song is turned 
to pleyning” and one fitly acquires the name “ Chaunte- 
pleure.” 3 In such adversity the keenest prick of suffering 
comes from remembering happier things, and so we have 
the theme of “‘a sorrow’s crown of sorrows.” 4 Moreover, 
the cruelty of Fortune is in proportion to her former 


* See G. de Machaut, Remede de Fortune, \l. 969 ff. (“Li uns est pleins, li 
autres vuis”’). 

2 See Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, 1, 326, ll. 15-16 (“. . . Lyke draw-well 
bukkets dowkand vp and doun’’). Cf. Shakespeare’s Richard II, IV, i, 
183 ff.: 

On this side my hand, and on that side yours. ~ 
Now is this golden crown like a deep well 

That owes two buckets, filling one another, 

The emptier ever dancing in the air, 

The other down, unseen and full of water: 

That bucket down and full of tears am I, 
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high. 


Cf. also Goethe’s “‘goldnen Eimer” (Faust, IL 449 f.): 
Wie Himmelskrafte auf und nieder steigen 
Und sich die goldnen Eimer reichen! 


Notice the two buckets in the picture of Galeazzo Visconti (14th century), 
in A, S. Cook’s article on “The Last Months of Chaucer’s Earliest Patron,” 
Connecticut Acad. of Arts and Sciences, Trans., XXI (1916), 17. 

3 See Chaucer, Anelida and Arcite, \. 320, and Book of the Duchesse, |. 599. 
See also Rutebeuf, Zuores, 1, 105, 1. 40 (and note idid., III, 91 ff.); Roman de 
Fauvel, |. 2774. P. Meyer, in Romania, XIII, 510-511 (12), describes the 
poem La Pleure-chante. 

4 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. iv, 4 f.; Dante, Inferno, v, 121 ff. 
(not connected with Fortune); Pierre de la Broche (Monmerqué and Michel, 
Théétre Francais, p. 211), “Quar hom qui n’a plus richece,” etc.; Chaucer, 
Troilus and Criseyde, iii, 1625 ff.; Gower, Vox Clamanitis, ii, 61 ff.; Gavin 
Douglas, Eneados, bk. xi, prol. (Works, IV, 6, ll. 11-12; reference to Boethius); 
The Complaynt of Scotlande, p. 71, \l. 7 ff. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 55 


kindness: the higher we are exalted, the farther we 
fall. 

This lady Fortune is so changeable that her variations 
are to all intents and purposes instantaneous; hence most 
appropriately the rhetorical formula “now — now” is 
often used in describing her or her activities. This de- 
vice, or the conception which prompts it, naturally gives 
rise to considerable use of contrast and antithesis, even 
without the particular formula; * and this in turn leads to 


* QuanTo-Tanro: see Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, XXI, 103 (no. 152, 
st. 3); Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 27 (“Nam graviore ruit 
turris tumefacta ruina,” etc.); Abélard and Héloise, epistle iv (Migne, vol. 
CLXXVIII, col. 194), ‘““quanto universis in te... tanto hinc,” etc.; Boc- 
caccio, De Casibus, pp. 250-251, 255 (“in tantum illi laetior arrisit,” etc.); 
Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 148 ff., ll. 27 ff.; Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, p. 761, 
B (“quanto altius ... tanto periculosius,” etc.); Guicciardini, Opere Ined., 
I, 272 (“quanto pit... tanto pit”), 391 (“che o...0 che’); Philippe de 
Beaumanoir, La Manekine, ll. 1088 f., 4648 (Gewores, 1, 36,144); Watriquet de 
Couvin, Dis de ’ Escharbote, ll. 141 {. (Dits, p. 401); Jubinal, Fongleurs et Trou- 
véres, pp. 177 ff., Il. 16 ff.; Alain Chartier, Zéwores, p. 394 (“si haut si bas”’). 

2 See Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, pp. 16 (now cheerful, now 
lamenting, etc.), 17; Alanus de Insulis, 4nticlaudianus, VIII, 1 (Migne, vol. 
CCX, col. 560), now in better gown, now in poor garb, etc.; Gesta di Federico, 
1. 1674; Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 146 (now threatening, now flattering, etc.); 
Chevalier Errant, §vi, in Gorra’s Studi, p. 46 (now she makes a poor cleric a 
pope, etc.); Benoit de Ste. Maure, Roman de Troie, IV, 320, ll. 29050 ff.; 
Grant Mal fist Adam, ed. Suchier, p. 62, st. 123; Simund de Freine, Roman de 
Philosophie, \\l. 119 f.; Alain Chartier, Quores, pp. 267 (“ores eslongne.. . 
ores”), 394; Gower, Mirour de lOmme, ll. 22154-22156; also Confessio 
Amantis, prol., 569-570, and Vox Clamantis, ii, 123, 154; Lydgate, Troy 
Book, ii, 2019; also Temple of Glas, App. I (continuation of Mss.), ll. 366 ff. 
(Schick’s ed., p. 64); Gavin Douglas, The Palice of Honour (Works, I, 9, ll. 
6-14); Pinkerton, Ancient Scotish Poems, I, 263, |. 23. 

3 See in general the themes of tragedy, poverty and riches, white and 
black, smiling and tearful, etc. See Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 146 (visits high 
and low, palace and hut); Sannazaro, Opere, p. 383, son. lviti (“acerba,” 
“dolce”); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxi, 82 (““savj matti”); Roman de la 
Rose, ll. 3990 ff.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 416, ll. 47 fF; 


56 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the adoption of paradoxes to express the particular dis- 
taste the author in question feels at Fortune’s fickleness.* 

The goddess who sometimes seems kind to us, but who 
is really treacherous, resembles a step-mother. She has 
fed us perhaps from her breast,? but later she turns 
against us. She is interested in us only from selfish 
motives, and she thus becomes fittingly a noverca.3 

But such mobility of character and such caprice in 
favor and affection stamp Fortune as something still 
worse. As all men sooner or later share in her favors,‘ 


also his Reméde de Fortune, \l. 990 ff.; Christine de Pisan, Gewores, 1, 19 
(xviii, 11, “Dueil pour solas”); Gower, Vox Clamanitis, ii, 121 ff.; Lydgate, 
Temple of Glas, App. I (continuation of Mss.), ll. 365 ff. (with and without 
nunc — nunc); the Pearl, |. 130. 

t Alanus, Anticlaudianus, VIII, 1 (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 559), harsh in 
her blandishments, cloudy in light, rich and poor, gentle and cruel, sweet and 
bitter, laughing and weeping, fixed yet moving, blind yet seeing, constant in 
fickleness, firm in motion, faithful in falsity, fickle in truth, etc.; Roman de la 
Rose, ll. 5972 ff.; G. de Machaut, Remede de Fortune, ll. 1129 ff. (“Fortune est 
amour haineuse, Bonneiirté maletireuse,” etc.). Cf. the paradoxes of love, 
Roman de la Rose, \l. 4307 ff. See S. L. Wolff, Greek Romances in Elizabethan 
Prose Fiction, p. 437; cf. p. 234, where he calls the oxymoron a “flashy” 
literary device. 

2 Nurse: Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii, 8 ff.; Roman de la Rose, ll. 
4906 f.; G. de Machaut, Reméde de Fortune, \l. 2612 ff., and Poésies, ed. 
Chichmaref, II, 497, 1. 19; Deschamps, Ceuwores, V1, 56 (mcxxxiv); Pierre 
Michault, La Dance aux Aveugles, p. 46; Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, 
symb. xxiii (right breast exposed; cf. the similar picture of the Fortune of 
Antium on coins, Roscher, col. 1547). See Cousin, pl. 189. 

3 Noverca: Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, pp. 4, 15; Alanus 
de Insulis, Anticlaudianus, VII, vii (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 556); Boccaccio, 
De Casibus, p. 78; Filocopo, 111 (Opere, VII, 254-255); Pierre de la Broche 
(Monmerqué and Michel, Théatre Francais, p. 210), “marrastre et mere”; 
Roman de la Rose, |. 4912; Deschamps, G:upres, VI, 57, 1. 10 (““mere de tous”’); 
Gower, Vox Clamantis, I, ii. 

4 Common: Wright, Satirical Poets, I, 21 (Nigel Wireker), “non est 
uitare”; Adam de la Halle, Feu de la Feuillée, ll. 774 ff.; Chaucer, Troilus and 


Criseyde, i, 843-844; 1V, 391-392. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 57 


and as she has apparently no serious motive in life, but 
“playeth with free and bonde,” she is no more or less 
than a harlot. 

IV 


POWER 


In enumerating the various traits of Fortuna’s charac- 
ter I have dwelt particularly on her inconstancy in deal- 
ing out her gifts. Let us now consider what is the nature 
of these gifts and what are the limitations of her realm of 
activity. 

There are many allusions to Fortune’s might and her 
desire to show it.? Sometimes, indeed, she seems to be in 
complete control of human life, whether man makes any 
resistance or not. One poet tells us that 


Fortuna tutto pud, che da ’] potere, 
Né senza il suo voler si volta foglia; 


* Boccaccio, Decameron, II, vii (Opere, I, 189), X, viii (tdid., V, 86, “amato 
dalla fortuna”); and Donne Famose, p. 193 (cap. Ixii, “FLORA MERETRICE 
Romana. Gli antichi paiono provare che Flora fu una donna romana, alla 
quale quanto tolse il vituperoso guadagno, tanto le aggiunse di nominanza la 
favorevole fortuna”). See Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 15 
(“meretrix”’); Aeneas Sylvius, Storia di Due Amanti, p. 29 (“‘libidine é socia 
della fortuna”); Fregoso, Dialogo di Fortuna, sig. A7‘° (cap. iv); Machiavelli, 
Capitolo di Fortuna (Opere, VII, 368); Floire et Blanceffor, |. 2264 (“druérie”’); 
G. Paris, Chansons, p. 112 (cxiv, 6), ‘ma maistresse”; Chaucer, Monk’s Tale, 
B. 3746-3747 (‘‘kiste So likerously”’); Gower, Vox Clamanitis, 11, 131; Lyd- 
gate, Troy Book, v, 1020; Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, ll. 1387 ff.; Melu- 
sine, ll. 3461 f. (Fortune not privy with me); Dunbar, Quhome to sall I Com- 
plane my Wo, \. 58 (Poems, II, 102), “freyndly smylingis of ane hure”’; Laing, 
Scottish Worthies, p. §4, “She lovly lul’d me in her lape.” 

2 See the yoke of Fortune, Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. i, 48; also Al- 
berti, Opere, II, 10 (Della Famose, proem.). See Henricus Septimellensis, 
Trattato, 1730, p. 16 (the most powerful in the world); Guido Cavalcanti, in 
Poeti del Primo Secolo, 11, 329; Lydgate, Troy Book, i, 776-777 (“‘schewen her 
myght”’), iv, 2683 ff. (no remedy); Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I, 411 (“sig- 


58 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


that pleasure and displeasure follow according to her will, 
that she rules the heavens, that the world is under her law, 
and so on.? Chaucer holds that “fortuna may non angel 
dere,’ ? but the Church at least appears to be subject to 
her influence. Ecclesiasts find themselves on her wheel, 
and Fortune raises and puts down both priest and bishop.$ 

Usually, however, Fortune’s powers have to do with 
more secular matters, and we find her particularly asso- 
ciated with the world‘ (which, adopting her qualities, 
becomes more than ever temporal and “mundane”’) and 


noria della fortuna’); Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 271 (spares no age); also 
Decameron, IV, i (Opere, I], 161, what Fortune grants); Filostrato, VIII, xxvi 
(ibid., XIII, 252, what Fortune plans), and II, li (idid., 48, control of life; cf. 
Decameron, X, 1x, ibid., V, 113); Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, X XI, xx (Fortune 
scatters all defence against her; cf. Gower, Vox Clamantis, ii, 177 ff.). 

t Bracci, Canti Carnascialeschi, p. 324. See also Petrarch, Bucolicum 
Carmen, p. 135, ll. 81 f. (“fortuna gubernat Res hominum”); Aeneas Sylvius, 
Storia di Due Amanti, p. 80 (“universale regolatrice”); Boiardo, Orlando In- 
namorato, I,xvi, 1 (“Tutte le cose sotto de la luna . . . Son sottoposti,” etc.). 

2 Monk’s Tale, B. 3191. 

3 A. Medin, Ballata della Fortuna, in Il Propugnatore, new ser., II? 
(1889), 121 f., st. xxvii (“La santa Chiesa la Fortuna mena,” etc.). See 
Guicciardini, Opere Ined., I, 203 (cccxlvi); Floire et Blanceflor, \l. 2259 f. 
(“les vesquiés ... les boins clers””); G. de Machaut, Reméde de Fortune, ll. 
1179 ff. (power over emperors, popes, and kings); David Lindsay, Works, ed. 
Laing, I, 74 (Papyngo, |. 359, ‘“Nocht sparing Papis, Conquerouris, nor 
Kyngis’’). See also, in art, Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, ed. 1554, picture at 
end of the prologue (two figures on the wheel wearing bishops’ mitres, with a 
kneeling ecclesiast at the left); also that at beginning of the sixth book (fol. 
cxliii, a bishop on the wheel); Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symb. cxi 
(Fortune bestowing the papal crown on Clement VII). Cf. the remarkable 
wheel (if that is what it is) with Christ transfigured in the centre, Moses and 
Elias on each side of him, and the three apostles, Peter, James, John, at the 
base of the picture, in the cathedral at Chartres (xii century), Didron, 
Histoire de Dieu, p. 119; and cf. above, p. 19, n. 2; also Heider, Mittheilun- 
gen, p. 122. 

4 Cf. Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, met. iii, 13. Notice the title of one of 
Benivieni’s poems, “De la Vanita Inganni et Superbia del Mondo” (Opere, 


cL, 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 59 


the court. Both the world and the court are fickle. The 
court is of course a smaller world, a specialized micro- 
cosm, and thus forms a suitable background for the 
changes of Fortune’s favor. 

As Fortuna is very much at home at court, so she deals 
particularly in royal favors, bestowing kingship, empire, 
and crown, and taking them back at will.? This is a favor- 


p- 153°). See Chambers, Early English Lyrics, p. 167, 1. 37, “Ne tristou to 
this world” (see also p. 360, note on a variant of this verse and on a drawing 
of Fortune’s wheel, with a stanza of French poetry on a similar theme); Lyd- 
gate, Fabula Duorum Mercatorum, |l. 622 f. (the world is “unstable . . . nat 
abydyng... variable”); Schir William Wallace, vi, \\. 97 ff. (“nothing till 
hewynly gouwernance’’); Douglas, The Palice of Honour (Works, I, 9, |. 4, 
“Inconstant warld and quheill contrarious’’). Description of the world 
seems associated in terminology with the description of Fortune. 

t See Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, p. 2, ‘“Si quod Boe- 
cius de fortuna veraciter asserit de curia dixerimus, recte quidem et hoc, ut 
sola sit mobilitate stabilis”; cf. p. 1, ““Scio tamen quod curia,”’ etc., and p. 
238, ‘Curia fortuna non est; in motu tamen immobiliter est,” etc. See Alain 
Chartier, Zuvres, pp. 267 (“en Cour la trouveras’’), 394 (note the title of the 
piece, “Le Curial”); Deschamps, Gevores, V, 289 (mxxi), VI, 171 (mcxci, 29), 
260, Il. 15 ff.; Gower, Confessio Amantis, v. 2247 ff., 2268-2269; David Lind- 
say, Works, 1, 68 (Papyngo, \l. 192 ff.; Fortune does not seem to be in the 
forest, see ]. 197); Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, I, 7, ll. 73 ff; Sibbald, Chron- 
icle, I, 348, ll. 1 f. See Dryden’s Miscellany (5th ed., 1727, VI, 283, Eccho to 
the Cavalier’s Complaint). 

2 See Lucan, Pharsalia, viii, 207; Boethius, Cons. Philos., 11, met. 1, 3; 
Carmina Burana, p. 47 (Ixxvii, st. 3); Hildebert de Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo 
(Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 1419, “Has ludit fortuna... regesque,”’ etc.); 
Boccaccio, De Casibus, p. 135 (“quis regum’’); Sannazaro, Opere, p. 46; 
Floire et Blanceflor, ll. 2258, 2965 ff.; Roman de. Fauvel, \l. 23 ff.; Jean de 
Condé, Dits et Contes, Il, 360, ll. 179 ff.; Dinaux, Trouvéres, II, 38; Chaucer, 
Monk's Tale, B. 3538-3540, 3557-3558; Gower, Mirour de l’Omme, ll. 22057 
ff.; also Confessio Amantis, prol., 769 ff., and vii, 3172-3173 (king on the 
wheel); Lydgate, Stege of Thebes, \l. 1975 ff.; and Troy Book, ii, 1864 ff.; v, 
§30 ff., 1032 ff., 3549 ff.; Furnivall, Political, Religious, and Love Poems, p. 
265 (“pis wondir wel under pis trone”’ reads as if describing a drawing); 
James I, Kingis Quair, st. 9, 1. 5; Metcalfe, Legends of the Saints, I1, 250 
(xxxvi, 943-944); Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, I, 32, |. 26, 


60 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


ite theme with poet and artist alike,t and plays a promi- 
nent part in the “formula of four” (regnado, regno, reg- 
navi, sum sine regno), which we shall study in connection 
with the wheel.? The point here is that Fortune controls 
_ royal offices. 

Since Fortuna rules affairs at court, it is natural that 
she should be figured as a queen. She is crowned, and is 
empowered to rule her realm.* This is another favorite 
theme in art.’ Asa queen she is, of course, furnished with 
subjects and servants, who attend upon her will.s 


« In drawings, see Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, ed. 1554, fol. cxliii (figure of 
the wheel, — cf. the picture at end of the prologue, and see plate 10 below); 
Aubry, Roman de Fauvel, p\. xvi (Fortune offering two crowns); Cousin, Livre 
de Fortune, plates 117 (three crowns and three scepters on the wheel), 181 
(Fortune taking away with one hand a king’s crown and with the other his 
scepter); Villard de Honnecourt, 4/bum, xlii (six figures); Du Sommerard, 
Les Arts du Moyen Age, Album, vol. II, ser. 4, plates 38, 39 (a crowned figure 
at the top; cf. ser. 8, pl. 30); Barbier de Montault, Traité, 1, 162-163, §3 (in 
sculpture at Amiens there are eight figures on each side and a king at the top; 
again, at Beauvais there are five on each side, one at the top, and one pros- 
trate underneath); Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symb. xxiii (Fortune up- 
holding a royal coat of arms). 2 Below, pp. 164 ff. 

3 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. i, 55; Leyser, Historia Poetarum, p. 
864 (‘“regendam”); Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 17 (“tunc 
regina verenda”’); Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, p. 388, ll. 
25-27; Baudouin de Condé, Dits et Contes, I, 34, ll. 73-75; Charles d’Orléans, 
Poésies, 1, 58 (‘‘princesse”); Roman de Fauvel, ll. 1877 ff. (“double cou- 
ronne”’), 2339 (‘je suis roine”); Lydgate, Zroy Book, v, 635 (‘‘stormy 
quene’’); Christine de Pisan, Livre du Chemin, p. 96, |. 2205 (‘‘royne de tout 
meseur’’). Cf. plates 5, 6, 8, in this volume. 

4 See Fortune crowned, Carmina Burana, p. 1; Aubry, Roman de Fauvel, 
pl. xvi; crowned deity, Didron, Annales Archéol., I, 433 f. (Bibl. Amiens, Ms. 
216); enthroned and crowned, Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, 
Album, vol. II, ser. 4, plates 37, 38, 39, 40 (from Ms. of Petrarch’s De Reme- 
diis in French); Weinhold, Gliicksrad und Lebensrad, p.14 (drawing on Ms. of 
the Irésor of Brunetto Latini); Cousin, pl. 27 (cf. pl. 129), and see pl. 173. 

5 Boccaccio refers (De Casibus, III, i, p. 60) to her “‘ancillarum longior 
ordo.” See Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, II, 150 (‘‘subgiet de Fortune”); Boe- 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 61 


This point brings our study to a rather remarkable con- 
ception. Fortune, we have seen, is queen, with a complete 
retinue; she is the mother of mankind, a daughter of Jove, 
and there has even been an idea that the men of ancient 
Rome thought of her as Jove’s mother.t She stands on a 
ball or on a wheel, and her wheel has been compared with 
the moon.? Our summary even thus far may suggest a 
similarity to the figure of the Blessed Virgin as she has 
often been depicted in art. Anyone who studies the poetry 
dedicated to the Virgin would do well to see whether 
there has not been some influence, on one side or the 
other, between the poetry of Fortuna and that of the 
Virgin. For example, we read in one poem to Our Lady: 


Li soleux est ta couverture: 
La lune, souz tes piez pozée, 
Se nos sénéfie a droiture 

Que sor nos serez essaucée 

Et seur fortune & seur nature. 


thius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. ii, 17; Innocent III, De Contemptu Mundi, I, xvii 
(Migne, vol. CCXVII, col. 709), “fortuna servos constituit.”” — ForTuNE’s 
Court: Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, p. 614; Koch, Christine de Pizan, p. 68, 
last half (Dame Richece at the first door, Espérance at the second, Poverty at 
the third); Pierre Michault, Za Dance aux Aveugles, pp. 30-33 (Eur and 
Maleur are trumpeters, Destiny gives prizes); Furnivall, Originals and Ana- 
logues, p. 164 (“‘magna omnis fortuna seruitus magna est”); Lydgate, Minor 
Poems, ed. MacCracken, I, 128, ll. 35-36; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I, 121 
(Dangiers apparently obeys Fortune); Gower, Mirour de l’Omme, passage ll. 
22081 ff. (Fortune has two handmaids, Renomée and Desfame, with horns 
which they blow to spread tidings). See Fortune’s companions, Concupis- 
centia-carnis, Couetyse-of-eyen, Pruyde-of-parfit-Lyuynge, Piers Plowman, 
C. xii, 173-176 (Skeat’s ed., I, 331). Deschamps (Guores, IX, 358, ll. 11148 
ff.) makes Diligence mistress of Fortune. 

1 See H. Dessau (Hermes, 1884, XIX, 453-455), refuting this idea. He 
shows that Fovi puer means filia Fovis. Cf. above, p. 49, n. I. 

2 See p. $0, n. 6, above. 


62 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Tu iez chatiaux, roche hautainne 
Qui ne crienz ost ne sorvenue; 
Tu iez li puis & la fontainne.? 


And so the parallels continue. The Virgin is a fortress 
and a lofty rock, and Fortune’s house is often on a tower- 
ing rock. To be sure, the significance of the symbolism in 
the two cases is entirely different; but, despite the con- 
trast in meaning, a greater effect may have been gained in 
the representation of Our Lady by use of some of the 
symbols already familiar in the cult of the pagan deity. 
The similarity of some of Murillo’s pictures of the Blessed 
Virgin to some of the drawings of Fortuna is striking in- 
deed. Incidentally I may mention that, in the poem of 
the Wallace, the hero has a significant vision of a lady, 
“full brycht and scheyne,” who gives him a wand of red 
and green, blesses his face and eyes with a sapphire, and 
chooses him as her love. She tells him that his people are 
in pain but that he will return to them. She gives him a 
book divided into three parts, the first part in letters of 
brass, the second 1n gold, the third in silver, and then “on 
to the cloud ascendyt off his sycht.”” A clerk who inter- 
prets the dream observes, 


I can nocht witt quhat qweyn at it suld be, 
Quhethir fortoun, or our lady so fre. 

Lykly it is, be the brychtnes scho brocht, 
Modyr off him that all this warld has wrocht.? 


* Rutebeuf, @uvores, II, 157. For the figure of a woman standing on the 
moon, see the book of Revelation, xii, 1. The parallelism with Fortuna must 
not be pressed too hard. 

2 Wallace, vii, 90-132. This lady reminds one of the magnificent “‘duches”’ 
who descended from the clouds to King Arthur (Morte Arthure, allit., ll. 
3250 ff.). 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 63 
Manifestly the author of the Wallace felt, whether he 


showed good taste or not, that there was some point in 
confusing the goddess with the Virgin, in mixing the pro- 
fane with the sacred.t The exact degree of the dignity of 
Fortuna, however, can be determined only by a further 
study of her powers. We have seen that she is royal, that 
she sometimes controls the Church, and that she is the 
bestower of gifts to mankind. what is the nature of these 
gifts? 

Fortuna is, of course, primarily the giver.” She gives, 
but, we must remember, she takes away again; $ and yet 
she does no injustice, for, after all, the possessions are 
hers.4. These possessions are of various kinds; but first 
and foremost there is a general notion that Fortune deals 
in the mundane, the temporal, in goods of mortal con- 


t The point that the author of the Wallace wished to make is, clearly, that 
Wallace was not sure whether his hopes (to which he was led by the visionary 
lady) were dependable or not. 

a See Boccaccio, Genealogia de gli Dei, p. 11 (‘tutte quelle cose, che 
s’appartengono a mortali”’); also Decameron, II, 11 (Opere, I, 120); Fiam- 
metta, cap. v (ibid., VI, 115), ““larghezze,” and cap. vi (p. 142), “quello che la 
fortuna t’ha riserbato”; and Filocopo, lib. v (ibid., VIII, 234), ‘i beni della 
fortuna”; Sannazaro, Opere, p. 46 (“‘liberale in donare’’); Petrarch, Vite d. 
Uomini, 17, 795 (“bene cosa che possa dare la fortuna”); Gareth, Rime, II, 
243, son. ccv (“‘mercede”’); G. de Machaut, Le Dit de I’ Alerion, \l. 2288 ff. 
(Geuvres, ed. Hoepfiner, II, 318). See Boccaccio’s hundred-handed goddess, 
De Casibus, p. 146 (VI, 1). 

3 Poliziano, Prose Volgari, p. 240, |. 50 (“‘fertque refertque”); Lorenzo 
de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 84; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, II], xxxvii; Charles 
d’Orléans, Poésies, 1, 212; Roman de la Rose, \l. 18804-18805; Gower, Cronica 
Tripertita, 1, 93. 

* Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii, 12 ff. See Michault Taillevent, Regime 
de Fortune, bal. vi (Alain Chartier’s Quvres, p.715). For the reverse of the 
idea (Fortune being nothing, having nothing to give), see Gower, Vox Cla- 
mantis, il, 301-302; and Mirour de l’Omme, ll. 14296 ff. (cf. Seneca, epistle 
lix, 18, referred to in Macaulay’s note to the Mirour, p. 428). 


64 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


cern.t These we may subdivide appropriately as (1) dig- 
nities — honor, fame, glory, and the like;? (2) riches, 
which are of course the mundane gifts par excellence. 

1 No Virtue 1n TueEm: Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 234 (Nigel Wireker), 
“vitiorum Semina sunt, scelerum patula, mortis iter... toxica mortis”; 


Carmina Burana, p. 47 (Ixxvi a, 4); Alanus de Insulis, 4nticlaudianus, VIII, 
ii (Migne, vol. CCX, § 401); Pontano, Opera Omnia, II, 147 (De Fortuna, i); 


Gareth, Rime, II, 243, son. ccv; Christine de Pisan, Livre du Chemin, p. 11, — 


ll. 254 ff. — MunpaneE Goons: Dante, Inferno, vii, 79 (“li ben vani”’); Boc- 
caccio, Filocopo, 11 (Opere, VII, 145); also De Casibus, p. 146 (“rerum mor- 
talium ministra’”’); Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, Il, 318; 
(Boccaccio Ameto, Opere, XV, 122, “beni mondani’’); Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 
146, |. 4 (“ben temporal’’); Poliziano, Prose Volgari, p. 104 (“cose umane”’); 
Simund de Freine, Roman de Philosophie, \\. 863 f. (““not worth a prune”’); 
Roman de la Rose, \\. 4870-4871, 4897; Deschamps, Gwores, I, 241 (cxxi, I, 
“biens temporelz de ce monde”); II, 124, 1. 29 (“‘faulx biens”), 141, 1. 18 
(‘‘biens de pardurableté’’); Gower, Confessio Amantis, prol., 560 ff.; Lydgate, 
The Churl and the Bird, st. 30; G. de Machaut, Poésies,ed. Chichmaref, II], 476, 
ll. 78 f. (Fortune gives a prune, green or “meiire,” as she likes); Sannazaro, 
Opere, p. 45 (“le mondane prosperita”). | 

2 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., 1], pr. ii, 5; Honorius of Autun, Speculum 
Ecclesiae (Migne, vol. CLXXII, col. 1057, C), “gloria hujus mundi”; Gesta di 
Federico, |. 2761 (“laus et honor’); Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo 
Secolo, II, 326 (“estate”); Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 41 (“natos egregios’’), 
151 (“gloriae’’); Pucci, Poesia Popolare, ed. Ferri, p. 125 (lordship, and for 
knowledge of Boethius see p. 285); Fregoso, Dia/ogo di Fortuna, sig. B4¥° (cap. 
viii); G. de Machaut, Le Fugement dou Roy de Navarre, \l. 2258 ff. (Zuvres, 
ed. Hoepfiner, I, 214, ““honneur’’); also Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 556, ll. 
17 ff.; Taillevent, Regime de Fortune, bal. 1i (Alain Chartier’s Zwores, p. 711), 
glory, honor, fame, wealth; Deschamps, Gevores, X, p. xliv (bal. xxxvi, 5 ff.); 
Chaucer, dnelida and Arcite, \. 43 (“triumphe and laurer-crouned”’); Lyd- 
gate, Serpent of Division, p. 54, ll. 18 f.; and Troy Book, ii, 2035 f.; v. 1493 f. 
Cf. Sibbald, Chronicle, II, 399, ll. 23-24 (only virtue wins true honor). 

3 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii, 5. See Hildebert de Lavardin, De 
Fortunae Bonis (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 1044): ‘Bona sunt opulentia, prae- 
latio, gloria. Ad opulentiam referuntur praedia, clientelae, peculium, the- 
saurus, ornatus. In praediis uero aedificia et agri numerantur,” etc. Croe- 
sus was subject to Fortuna, — a stock example: see Boethius, Cons. Philos., 
II, pr. ii, 32 ff. (not the usual account, but how Croesus was saved by rain); 
Henricus Septimellensis, Zrattato, 1730, p. 14; Alanus de Insulis, Anticlau- 


~ 


9 
. 
4 
’ 
i 
d 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 65 


Our abstract “fortune” of to-day is in some uses domi- 
nated by this latter idea. 

Some deliberate thought has, however, been expended 
on a more definite catalogue of Fortune’s bounties; in 
fact, they are listed and published dogmatically, as it 
were, and the list is accepted. Frére Lorens, in his Somme 
des Vices et des Vertus (1279),sets forth the gifts of God as 
divided into those of nature, of fortune, and of grace. 
Nature bestows the properties of the body — fairness, 
strength, prowess, nobility, eloquence; and the properties 
of the soul —clear intelligence and subtle wit.t For- 
tune gives us “‘hautesces, honors, richesces, delices, pros- 
peritez.”’ ? This list establishes for us the difference be- 


dianus, VIII, i (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 560); Poesie Ital. Ined., 11, 62 (“uom 
ricco”’); Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, 11, 319; Boccaccio, 
Teseide, iv, 68 (Opere, IX, 142), and Amorosa Visione, cap. xxxi (ibid., XIV, 
125 ff.); Petrarch, Bucolicum Carmen, p. 135, 1. 104; Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 
271 (lib. iv, cap. iv), ll. 25 ff.; Masuccio, I/ Novellino, p. 226 (rich and poor); 
Bembo, Opere, I, 101-102 (Degli Asolani, lib. ii, debate about Fortune and 
love of wealth); Machiavelli, Opere, VII, 324 (Decennale Secondo); Fregoso, 
Dialogo di Fortuna, sig. B4¥° (cap. viii); Chrestien de Troyes, Eric und Enid, 
ll. 4801 ff. (‘‘Povre estiiez: or seroiz riche’); Roman de la Rose, \. §927; Gorra, 
Studi, p. 60 (summary of Ms. fr. 1164, Bibl. Nat., Rommant de Fortune et tous 
les Estas du Monde: teaches that riches do not make a man happy; a satire on 
all stages of society including the religious); G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. 
Chichmaref, II, 497, 1. 2; Deschamps, @évores, V, 209 (bal. deccclxxii inter- 
prets Boethius’s Fortuna; cf. I, 316, bal. clxxxi, ““En Boece... trouverez- 
vous,” etc.); VI, 9, 1. 15 (“tresors”’”); X, p. xxili (bal. xvi, 6 f.); Christine de 
Pisan, Quovres, 1, 208 (i, 15,16), 214 (vii, 5); Chaucer, Pardoner’s Tale, C. 779 
(‘This tresor hath fortune un-to us yiven”’). In Lydgate’s Assembly of Gods, 
ll. 316-317, Fortune sits next to Plutus. See the drawing of Fortune leading 
Plutus, in Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 65. 

t See the translation in Dan Michel’s Ayenbdite, ed. Morris, pp. 24 ff. 

2 See F. W. Eilers, in Essays on Chaucer, pt. V, p. 512. Cf. Guilielmus 
Peraldus, quoted in K. O. Petersen’s Sources of the Parson’s Tale, p. 42: 
“Bona uero fortune sunt bona exteriora que sunt in potestate hominum, que 
ab hominibus possunt auferri, ut sunt diuitie, delicie, dignitates, laus seu 
gloria et gratia humana.” Cf. Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, p. 614. 


66 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


tween the gifts of Nature and those of Fortune, and forms 
the beginning of a steady tradition." A little extension of 
Fortune’s powers, however, is found in Boccaccio, who 
speaks of “diuitias, honestum coniugium,? dilectissimam 
prolem, spectabiles amicitias, clientelas, & huiusmodi 
fortunae bona.” 3 Deschamps includes among the offer- 
ings of Fortuna “‘beauté de corps, jeunesce,” and a va- 
riety of riches — “chiens et oisiaux, grans chevaulx pour 
jouster, Plaisans joyaulx,” and the like.4 

We must remember that Fortuna, when she is un- 
favorable, not only withholds these treasures but sends 
actual suffering, specifically imjuria; ’ and that she sends 
what is due from her — failure as well as success — in her 
special functions as goddess of love, war, and so on.° 


* Where Laurentius found this analysis, I do not know. It is not likely, of 
course, that it originated with him. See the three gifts referred to by Lorenzo 
de’ Medici, Poemi, ed. Carabba, pp. 79-80; Pontano, Opera Omnia, II, 129 
(De Fortuna, i); Gorra’s Studi, pp. 75-76 (Chevalier Errant, §vii); Chaucer, 
Parson’s Tale, §27 (450-455). Cf. Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, p. 601. 

2 Cf. Chaucer, Merchant’s Tale, E. 1311 ff. Skeat (Oxford Chaucer, V, 
355) relates this reference to Albertano of Brescia, Liber de Amore Dei. Cf. 
Selmi’s edition of Albertano’s Trattati Morali, p. 269 and note: “La casa e le 
ricchezze son dati dai padri et dalla madre; ma da Domenedio propriamente 
é data la buona moglie e savia.”” The passage, as Skeat notes, is not from 
Ecclesiasticus, to which Albertano refers it, but from Proverbs xix, 14. 

3 De Casibus, p. 170. 

4 Deschamps, Cuvres, III, 386 (bal. dxliv). Cf. Raynaud, Rondeaux, p. 
90, “Beauté, bonté ne grant lignaige,” etc. 

5 Alberti, Opere, II, 33 (Della Fam., i), III, 369 (Deifira); Petrarch, Rime, 
ed. Mestica, p. 84 (canz. vi [xi], 86, Fortuna ingiuriosa”’), and Africa, v, 90; 
Boccaccio, L’ Urbano (Opere, XVI), p. 49; Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxii, 15; 
Gower, Cronica Tripertita, ii, 331; Piers Plowman, B. vi, 221 (A. vii, 207), 
“any freke that fortune hath appeyred.” 

6 See below, pp. 89 ff. See the gifts of “Pees, vnytee, plentee and ha- 
boundance”’ from Juno and Ceres, which Fortune cannot remove: Lydgate’s 
“balade for a momyng,” in Brotanek’s Englischen Maskenspiele, p. 308, 1. 58. 
Cf. the “quanti varii e istranissimi casi” that Fortune prepares: Da Prato, 
Paradiso d. Alberti, 11, 171. ,Cf. Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, pr. v, 37-38. 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 67 


As Fortune may not only give but withhold high es- 
tate, so she may also cause a man to suffer particular 
kinds of debasement. He may actually be led to prison 
by her deceit. The prison theme is particularly impor- 
tant because it has a beginning in the great work of Boe- 
thius. Without exaggerating the importance of the Con- 
solaiio, it is fair to suspect that, when a mediaeval man in 
prison complained of Fortune, he was induced to think of 
blaming the goddess by remembering what Boethius did 
under similar circumstances. This theme is, moreover, a 
great favorite and suggests the influence af Boethius by 
its very extensiveness.’ A theme of similar nature is that 
of banishment or exile caused by Fortuna.? 

Of course the greatest injuries one can receive from 
Fortune nearly all consist in the fall from a high position, 


* See Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 24 (refers to Boethius); 
Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, 11, 313 (“consolazione Di preda, 
e di prigione’”’); Boccaccio, Donne Famose, p. 75 (cap. xxvii); Petrarch’s ad- 
dress to John of France, Barbeu du Rocher, in Mémoires del’ Académie des In- 
scriptions, etc., 2d ser., III, 214 ff.; Burchiello, Sonetti, p. 59 (pp. 29, 43, refer 
to Boethius); Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 351 (son. xxvii), 428; Lorenzo de’ Medici, 
Opere (1825), III, 38; Trissino, Italia Liberata, III, 156; Gorra, Studi, p. 57 
(Ms. fr. 12460, Bibl. Nat., dated 1345); Le Donnei des Amants, in Romania, 
XXV, 505, ll. 278 ff.; Froissart, Qiuvres, 1, 304-306 (La Prison Amoureuse); 
Alain Chartier, Ewores, p. 610; Villon, Zuores, ed. Lacroix, p. 112; Christine 
de Pisan, Géuores, II, 199 (Livre du Dit de Poissy, \l. 1324 f.); Charles 
d’Orléans, Poésies, 1, 43-55, 56-57, etc. (Poéme de la Prison), 151; Chaucer, 
Knight's Tale, A.1085 f.; Monk’s Tale, B. 3591 ff. (Barnabo killed in prison); 
Furnivall, Originals and Analogues, Appendix (after p. 550); Pinkerton, 
Ancient Scotish Poems, Il, 235 f. I have a reference to the Dunbar An- 
thology, pp. 180 ff., for a poem written before June 25, 1483, by Anthony 
Woodville, Lord Rivers, when in prison. 

2 See Hildebert de Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 
1418, § Ixxv); Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I?, 825; Alberti, Opere, II, 256 (Della 
Fam., iii); Giov. Fiorentino, I/ Pecorone, 11, 21 (xvi,1); Le Donnei des Amants, 
in Romania, XXV, 505, |. 283; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I, 82. 


68 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


from a state of happiness in general, as well as from a 
state of honor. “High to low”’ is the great theme in the 
middle ages as well as in classical times. Since this 
change in man’s fortune is what really constitutes the 
mediaeval idea of tragedy, we may call this the “tragic 
theme.” Dante thus describes tragedy for us: “In prin- 
cipio est admirabilis et quieta, in fine siue exitu est foetida 
et horribilis.” * Now it is clear that, if tragedy deals with 
mankind, the unpleasant ending must be brought about 
by the ultimate suffering of some human figure. To cause 
this suffering is the particular work of Fortuna.? We see 
her lowering man’s estate again and again in the medi- 
aeval authors; the victim thinks he is secure in his great- 
est glory and suddenly falls. The more general theme 


* Tutte le Opere, ed. Moore, p. 416 (epist. x, 197-199). 

2 Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, pr. ii, 36 f. See Chaucer’s definition of trag- 
edy, Monk’s Tale, B. 3181 ff., 3951 ff.; also see Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 
844 ff. Sedgewick, in his unpublished thesis on ‘‘ Dramatic Irony” (Harvard, 
1913, pp. 356 ff.), shows the use Shakespeare makes of the reversals of 
Fortune, especially in the historical plays. For a comparison with the use 
of this pagan Fortuna in Greek tragedy, see H. O. Taylor, Classical Heri- 
tage of the Middle Ages, pp. 41 f. (AEschylus and Sophocles). 

3 See Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, XXI, 103 (no. 152, st. 3); Wright, Sa- 
tirical Poets, II, 112 (Ixvi); Boccaccio, Fiammetta, 1x (Opere, VI, 200); also 
Filocopo, ii (ibid., VII, 131-132); Teseide, ii, 37, iv, 80 (ibid., IX, 68,146); and 
De Casibus, pp. 44 (“perpetuari arbitrantur’’), 174; Petrarch, Africa, ii, 
71 f.; Sannazaro, Opere, p. 52; Ariosto, Rime e Satire, p. 206, ll. 16 ff. (sat. 
iii); L’Escoufle, p. 105, ll. 3510 ff.; Chrestien de Troyes, Roman du Chevalier 
de la Charrette, p. 174; Roman de Fauvel, \\. 78 ff.; Philippe de Beaumanoir, 
Fehan et Blonde, \l. 1743 ff. (GEuores, 11, 56); Watriquet de Couvin, Dits, pp. 
81 (Il. 129 ff.), 228 (Il. 936 ff.); G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 
477, ll. 115 ff.; Deschamps, Géuores, V, 289 (mxxi); VII, 56, ll. 20 f.; Christine 
de Pisan, euores, I, 13 (xii, 5-7); Awntyrs of Arthure, st. xxi, ll. 254 fF; 
Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, v, 1459 ff.; also Monk’s Tale, B. 3325 ff.; 
Gower, Mirour de !Omme, \l. 10937 ff., 13028 ff., 26357 ff.; Lydgate, Siege 
of Thebes, ll. 889 f. Cf. Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, ll. 1135 ff.; Robert 
Lindsay of Pitscottie, Cronicles, 1, 32, ll. 16 ff. Contrast Boccaccio, Decam- 


a 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 69 


than this, the theme not of “falling”’ but of the transition 
from happiness to wretchedness, is also very widely 
used.* 

So far we are not sure whether Fortune acts justly or 
not in these cases that have been called tragedies. If the 
suffering of the chief figure in the scene comes accident- 
ally, then we may indeed consider this a weak and senti- 
mental kind of tragedy. No doubt that is how the term 
was understood in the Middle Ages, as the quotation 
from Dante indicates. But mediaeval authors wrote bet- 
ter stories than those of pure chance. We find many 
allusions to the wanton pride of the hero before his fall, a 
circumstance that makes the action of Fortuna more 
rational. Here she does not really put down the meri- 
torious; she castigates pride, which was at this time con- 
sidered as the greatest sin of all, as a vice involving every 
other.? The goddess may unreasonably exalt a man, but 
it is his own business to avoid self-satisfaction. Certain 
men, we learn, Fortune did succeed in making proud (and 
in this case she is not so definitely the Christian figure) ; or 
they became proud through their own fault — whereupon 


eron, II, iv (Opere, 1,134). The opposite theme of “low to high” is, of course, 
not uncommon: see Boethius, Cons. Philos., 11, met. i, 4; Dreves, Analecta 
Hymnica, XXI, 102 (no. 152, st. 1); Carmina Burana, p. 47 (Ixxvi a, 4); 
Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, 1, 325 ff. (Ane Complaint vpon Fortoun); etc. 

* I list only a few instances of its use: Boccaccio, Filocopo ii, iii, iv (Opere, 
VII, 131, 315, and VIII, 185, 187); Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I?, 825; Ariosto, 
Orlando Furioso, VIII, xl-xliv; Roman de la Rose, \l. 6132 ff.; Deschamps, 
Cuores, V, 75; etc. 

2 See the circle of Pride in Dante’s Purgatorio. Lucifer’s fall was espe- 
cially attributed to Orgueil: see De Guilleville’s Pelerinage de Ame, ll. 
4455 ff. (notice “trebucher,” |. 4464). Pride seems to have been considered 
the mental attitude of consciously or unconsciously measuring one’s self with 


God. 


70 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


she cast them down.t The remedy, of course, is to seek 
God and virtue, and not to prize the gifts of Fortune.? 

The tragic theme is elaborated by means of numerous 
examples, and thus we arrive at what we may call genu- 
ine tragedies. The beginning of these, however, is found 
in the mere listing of the names of those who have 
suffered at the hands of Fortune. It is unnecessary to 
copy out the catalogues. We need only remark that the 
men cited were famous figures in the literature and his- 
tory of the Middle Ages, and that some of them were 
Biblical.3 


* For pride, and Fortune’s method of dealing with it in mankind, see Pe- 
trarch, Bucolicum Carmen, p. 165, 1.141; Boccaccio, De Casibus (see Smith 
College Studies in Modern Languages, II], 210-211); Ariosto, Rime e Satire, p. 
g2 (cap. ix); Rutebeuf, Céwores, II, 175, ll. 157 ff., especially 174 ff.; Watri- 
quet de Couvin, Dits, pp. 73 (I. 11), 261 (Il. 967 ff.); Baudouin de Condé, Li 
Prisons d’ Amours, \l. 989-990, 2588 (Dits et Contes, 1, 302, 358); Jean de 
Condé, Dits et Contes, III, 154, ll. 78-79, 85 ff.; Jubinal, Fongleurs et Trou- 
véres, p. 177, ll. 7 ff.; also Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., I, 128; Deschamps, 
CEuvres, I, 237 (cxviii, 5); II, 286 (xxviii, heading, “Comment aucun ne se 
doit eslever en Orguel pour service de Grant Signeur”’); III, 134, ll. 40 ff.; 
VI, to1 (melxiii, 6 ff.); Christine de Pisan, Céuores, III, 29 (xv), 36 (Ix); 
Chaucer, Monk’s Tale, B. 3375 ff., 3773 ff.; also Nonne Preestes Tale, B. 
4593-4594, and Parson’s Tale, § 27 (445, 470); Gower, Mirour de ’Omme, 
ll. 21985 ff., 22017 ff.; Lydgate, Serpent of Division, pp. 13 (extract from 
Jehan de Tuim, ll. 6 ff.), 55 ff., also Troy Book, II, 6540 f. (the phrase is 
“*pe hize goddis,” not Fortune). See a drawing described in Roman du Renart, 
ed. Méon, I, p. x (Regnard at the top of the wheel, at his right Orgueil, at his 
left Guille). 

a Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, III, 153, ll. 51 ff. 

3 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. ii, 32 ff.; I, pr. vi, 32 ff., and met. vi; 
Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 15; Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 
XXI, 103 (no. 152, st. 3); Carmina Burana, p. 47 (Ixxvii, st. 3); Alanus de 
Insulis, Anticlaudianus, VIII, i (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 560); Petrarch, Rime, 
ed. Albertini, I, 142 (son. Ixx); IT, 246 (Irionfo della Fama, ii, 15 ff.); A. Me- 
din, Ballata della Fortune, in Il Propugnatore, new ser., II (1889), 101 ff.; 
Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, pp. 601-602, 613-614, 761-762 (includes the 
examples of Carolus Magnus, Pipinus, and Arturus); Guido Cavalcanti, in 


Se 


Lee 
ee i « 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE a1 


The complete development of this theme is found in 
Boccaccio’s De Casibus, which is devoted entirely to 
summarizing the tragedies caused by Fortune. This work 
excited favorable comment and appreciation in its own 
time and had many translators and imitators.’ As we 
should expect, Boccaccio makes the most elaborate use of 
the theme: he refers to the sin which the victim has com- 
mitted,? in fact he often discusses it; he summarizes the 
victim’s life, and he draws attention to the part Fortuna 
plays. No wonder Cassandra, in Chaucer’s Troilus, at- 
tempts to divert Troilus with accounts of mishaps like his 
own, and no wonder she knew plenty of them: 


Poeti del Primo Secolo, XI, 318 ff.; Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione (Opere, XIV), 
caps. xxxiv—xxxvil, and Lettere (ibid., XVII), p. 62; Alberti, Opere, III, 204 
(I/ Teog., 11), and see references at II, 4 ff. (Della Fam., proem.); Ariosto, Or- 
lando Furioso, XIII, Ixviii; Guicciardini, Opere Ined., 1, 272; Ghirardacci, 
Historia di Bologna, U1, 511 ff. (Sapienza and Fortune claiming the man); 
Adam de la Halle, Feu de la Feuillée, \\. 788 ff. (contemporary figures; Smith 
College Studies in Modern Languages, IV, 10, n. 48); Roman de Fauvel, \l. 
2355 ff., 2403 ff., etc.; Roman de la Rose, ll. 5870 ff., 6197 ff. (Fortune is un- 
just, but the gods allow it in order to torment the wicked more later); Phi- 
lippe de Beaumanoir, Ziuvres, I, 267-268 (the Manekine is written in prose 
as an example); Froissart, @uvres, 1, 216 f.; G. de Machaut, Remede de For- 
tune, ll. 1001 ff.; Alain Chartier, Zwvres, p. 268; Villon, Zuvres, ed. Lacroix, 
p. 132; Deschamps, Cores, VII, 192 ff. (pp. 197-199 have examples from the 
Old Testament); Piaget, Martin le Franc, pp. 179 f. (“d’abaisser l’orgueil”’); 
Koch, Christine de Pizan, p. 69 (part iii of the summary of Le Livre de la Mu- 
tacion mentions Richard II and Peter of Lusignan); Chaucer, Book of the 
Duchesse, 1. 717; Gower, Vox Clamanitis, ii, 315 ff., and Balades, p. 354, xxi 
(Troilus, Palamedes); Sir Gilbert Hay’s Manuscript, 1, 65 (Buke of the Law of 
Armys, pt. ii, cap. xv), ll. 1 ff. (the Nine Worthies); Morte Arthure, allit., 
3394 ff.; Gude and Godlie Ballatis, p. 215, ll. 20 ff.; Cranstoun, Satirical 
Poems, I,.325 ff. (examples of low to high and high to low; a modern case 1s 
that of the Earl of Morton); Lydgate, Serpent of Division, p. 13. 

t See, for example, Lydgate’s Fall of Princes and Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale; 
note also the verses in the introduction to the Ziegler edition of De Casibus. 

? See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 210. 


79 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Thou most a fewe of olde stories here, 
To purpos, how that fortune over-throwe 
Hath lordes olde. 


The literary type of the tragedy caused by Fortuna was 
firmly established and well recognized in the Middle Ages. 
In such a type it is natural that we should have a use of 
the vdi sunt formula: “mais ot sont les neiges d’antan!”’ ? 

So much, then, may be said of Fortune’s power over 
high estate from which man may fall. Incidentally, this 
fall may also involve a fall from a position of wealth; but 
the theme of the control of Fortune over wealth includes 
still another motif which deserves separate attention. 
This is embodied in the contest of Fortune and Poverty. 
First, since Fortune gives riches, she also bestows poverty 
when she is in an unfavorable mood. Therefore adverse 
Fortuna and Poverty go together, they become compan- 
ions; indeed, Poverty assists Fortuna.4 The type Poverty, 


* Troilus and Criseyde, v, 1459-1461. Cf. Machiavelli, Dell’ Asino d’Oro, 
v (Opere, VII, 349), 
Come I’antiche genti alte e famose 
Fortuna spesso or carezz6, ed or morse. 


Lydgate, Serpent of Division, p. 65, ll. 20 ff., refers to Chaucer’s version. — 

2 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., 11, met. vii, 15 f.; Carducci, Cantilene e Bal- 
late, pp. 106-108 (‘‘Dov’é Nembrotto il grande,” etc.); Gower, Mirour de 
lOmme, |, 22160. See Modern Language Notes, VIII, 94 ff., 253 ff.; XXVIII, 
106 ff.; for other instances, cf. Lowes’s Convention and Revolt in Poetry, Bos- 
ton, 1919, pp. 100 ff., and Ramiro Ortiz’s Fortuna Labilis, Bucharest, 1927. 

3 Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 134 (lib. ii, cap. x), ll. 16 ff.; Aeneas Sylvius, 
Opera Omnia, p. 569, C; Villon, Zuores, ed. Prompsault, p. 476, ll. 67-68; 
Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, \l. 15 ff.; Lydgate, Troy Book, v, 2097 ff.; 
Bocace de Nobles Maleureux (Couteau), fol. xlvi¥°, heading to bk. iii, ch. i 
(drawing [figure of a beggar?] below the wheel); Bourdillon, Early Editions of 
the Roman de la Rose, p. 110, $40 (drawings). 

4 Boccaccio, Teseide, iv, 23 (Opere, IX, 127); Roman de la Rose, ll. 8060 f., 
8078-8079; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 644 (x, 8-9); Piers 
Plowman, B. xi, 60 f. (C. xiii, 14 f.). 


THE STRUGGLE WITH POVERTY 


» 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 53 


which suffers the blows of the goddess, does not accept 
adverse Fortuna’s companionship so meekly. Boccaccio 
in his De Casibus describes a meeting between this figure 
and Fortuna: 


The fable is told by Andalus, who relates how Poverty was sitting 
at the crossroads, dressed in a coat with a hundred holes [note For- 
tune’s hundred hands, above, p. 44, n. 5] and deep in melancholy, 
when Fortune smiling proudly passed by. Rising with a harsh 
and bitter countenance, Poverty demanded, “Foolish one, why 
smilest thou?” Fortune replied, “I am looking with wonder at thee 
and thy dearth, thy pallor, fleeing thy friends, and arousing dogs.” 
Poverty, angered by the words and hardly withholding her fists, 
answered: “‘Lo, Fortuna, foolish judge, part-goddess, why dost thou 
slander me? I deny that my estate is caused by thee; for I am here 
by my own free-will. Let us compare our powers.” Fortune re- 
sponded derisively: “See what an obstinate spirit this wretched 
woman has because I have reduced her. It will take still more to 
sink her pride.” A little pleased with this, Poverty said: “We have 
already won part of the victory, for this trifler is stirred. But you 
mistake if you think J shall move to soften you with flattery. I have 
renounced all your gifts by my free-will. You think to debase me, 
but you raise me on high without knowing it; for he who does not 
wish to have riches is exalted in thought, considering the lofty pos- 
sessions he would not own if he served the worldly.’ Fortune replied 
with ill-patience, reminding Poverty of her power. “I believe you 
really do wonderful things,” said Poverty, “as I have often seen. 
Let us try our strength. If you talk about kings, I have been nurse 
to the Emperor of Rome and I was not then clad better than now.” 
Nearly desperate, Fortune answered, “Certainly this woman will 
make me mad with her presumption!” Poverty will fight her, and 
insists that they fight on one condition — that she who conquers 
shall put such law as pleases her upon the conquered. ‘‘What judges 
shall we have, what pledges?” sneered Fortune. ‘‘No man will be 
hostage for you. What prize can you give?”’ “You must fight me 
for myself alone, since I have nothing else,” answered Poverty. 
Fortune said she could lead Poverty to prison and keep her chained 
there; that way, however, Poverty would only feed at Fortune’s 
expense. She would have Poverty flayed. Poverty having no ar- 
mor, Fortune immediately flung herself upon her adversary; but 
Poverty finally made Fortune fall swooning, put her knee on her 


74 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


breast, bound her tightly, and did not let her recover until she con- 
fessed that she was conquered. “You know my power,” said 
Poverty; “‘now feel my graciousness. I had intended to break your 
wheel, but I have pity. You must keep the law I impose on you. 
You have control over fortune and misfortune; I want half the lord- 
ship, and I order that you bind Misfortune to a stake in a public 
place, so that he cannot pass any threshold or follow anybody unless 
some one looses him from his bondage. If you agree to this, you are 
free.”” Fortune was released and kept faith. 


Poverty is proof against the turns of Fortune and is 
therefore wholly admirable.? But in all adverse circum- 
stances there is another consolation besides that afforded 
by Poverty in Boccaccio: it is in such situations that we 
discover our true friends, and a friend in need is a friend 
indeed. This theme of the “friend in need,” which is very 
important and widespread, furnishes the substance of 
Chaucer’s ‘“‘balade” on the subject of Fortune.’ 


* De Casibus, III, 1, pp. 60 ff. Cf. the complimentary speech to Poverty, 
ibid., p. 25: “Tibi stabilitas, tibi immunitas, tibi si qua est quies, in mundanis 
concessa est. Tu artificiosa, tu ingeniosa, tu studiorum omnium laudabilium 
mater egregia es: te fortuna despicit, quam tu uiceuersa contemnis.” 

2 See Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 27 (poverty is a lion of 
defence, a prop of faith); Pierre Michault, La Dance aux Aveugles, p. 103 
(“Quant povreté est voluntaire,” etc.); Schénbach, in Sitzungsb. der Kaiserl. 
Akad. der Wissenschaften, CXLII, no. vii, p. 101 (the poor are free from 
the vicissitudes of Fortune’s wheel; refers to F. Vogt, in Zeitschrift des 
Vereins fiir Volkskunde, III, 349-372, and IV, 195-197); Durrieu, Boccace 
de Munich, pl. ix (Poverty wrestling with Fortune). See plate 3 in the pres- 
ent volume. 

3 See St. Augustine, epist. ili (Migne, vol. XX XIII, col. 65), “At si in 
potestate fortune est, ut hominem amet homo,” etc.; Gerbert of Aurillac, 
epist. xii (Migne, vol. CX X XIX, col. 204), “Hoc quidem ita,” etc.; Boethius, 
Cons. Philos., II, pr. viii, 18 ff.; Hildebert de Lavardin, Epistola ad Amt- 
cum (Migne, vol. CLXXI, cols. 1420-1423; Brunetto Latini, Z/ Favoletto, 
Il. 71 ff. (Ventura); Petrarch, De’ Rimedii, ed. Dassaminiato, I, 229, cap. 
1, motto (“Non tecum qui sunt, ueri sunt semper amici, etc.); Frezzi, 
Quadriregio, 1, 148 f., ll. 32 ff. (whole passage); Wace, Roman de Brut, ll. 
1991 ff.; Roman de Fauvel, ll. 2849 ff.; Roman de la Rose, ll. 4719 ff., 4881, 


~ 


ae 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 7A 


This theme brings us almost to the close of our de- 
scription of Fortune’s powers and capabilities and the 
accompanying formulae. But the discussion would be 
incomplete unless we examined the extent of her powers 
in regard to the boundaries between the field of her activ- 
ities and the domain of other gods. What is the differ- 
ence between the gifts of Fortune and the gifts of Nature, 
Astrology, and Fate? We have already given some at- 
tention to the bounties of Fortune and those of Nature,! 
and have observed that Nature confers gifts relating to 
the body and the soul. This is already hinted at in the 
works of the Church Fathers, where Nature is said to 
control outer nature and physical man.? A distinction 
between Nature and Fortune seems to have persisted 
throughout the Middle Ages. In Alanus de Insulis, Na- 
ture appears to be chiefly in control of “external nature” 
as we understand the phrase to-day; and this idea, to- 


4968, 8054 ff.; Pierre de la Broche (Monmerqué and Michel, Théétre Frangais, 
p- 213), “Son ami peut-on au besoin Essaier”; Deschamps, Cuores, I, 289 f.; 
IX, 3 ff.; X, p. xxii (bal. xv); Chaucer, Fortune; and Monk’s Tale, B. 3431- 
3436; Hoccleve, Works, I, 197, n.1; Dunbar, To Dwell in Court, My Friend, 
1,12 (Poems, II, 98). 

* Above, pp. 65 f. 

2 See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 184; 198, n. 101. 

3 Pontano, Opere Omnia, II, 129 (Fortune not nature); Pico della Miran- 
dola, Opera, 1, 353 (In Astrologiam, lib. iv, cap. ii); Rutebeuf, Euores, II, 157, 
]. 96 (“‘seur fortune & seur nature”); Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, III, 152, 
ll. 29, 32; also pp. 126-127, ll. 113 ff.; G. de Machaut, Le Dit de /’ Alerion, 
1. 2502 (Huvres ed. Hoepfiner, II, 325); also Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, I, 170 
(clxxxvili); Froissart, @éuores, II, 417 (cf. 414); Deschamps, @uores, VI, 56 
(mexxxiv); Alain Chartier, Zuores, p. 534; Lydgate, Zroy Book, 111, 2060 ff., 
and Assembly of Gods, \l. 316 ff. (description of Fortune, next to whom sits 
Pan); David Lindsay, Works, ed. Laing, I, 40, ll. 1046-1049; Sibbald, Chron- 
icle, III, 478, 1. 18 (Fortune “‘stayde Dame Nature’s will”). 

4 De Planctu Naturae (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 476; gifts mentioned, col. 


478). 


76 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


gether with the theory of Nature’s control over man’s 
physical and mental endowments, seems to continue." 
Originally, also, Fortune was different from Astrology.? 
Fortune is fickle, but the stars are arranged in accordance 
with the primal and enduring plan of a fixed destiny. 
They send down their influence according to their revolu- 
tions. The Church Fathers would say that, since For- 
tune and Astrology are both ministers of the Divine will, 
they are simply different modes of expression of that 
will; * but the poets, when aroused, do not seem particular 
about discriminating between these different modes of 


t See Boethius, Cons. Philos., 11, pr. v, 29; Dante, Paradiso, viii, 139 fF. 
(which can best be interpreted by taking Fortune to mean the giver of one’s 
environment, one’s worldly surroundings, and Nature the giver of one’s 
talents); Boccaccio, Decameron, VI, ii (Opere, III, 129); also Teseide, vi, 31 
(sdid., IX, 196, ““bellezza... gentilezza Di real sangue’’); Ariosto, Rime e 
Satire, p. 110 (cap. xvi); Pontano, Opera Omnia, II, 163° f. (Nature gives tal- 
ents); Roman de la Rose, ll. 5327 (“‘cors... forces . . . sagesces’’), 16092 ff., 
19705 (“Nature ... de tout le monde a la cure”’); G. de Machaut, Le Dit de 
 Alerion, \\. 4275 ff. (Geuores, ed. Hoepftner, II, 385). Gower (Confessio 
Amanitis, \i, 3250 ff.) disagrees and makes abstract “fortune” equivalent to 
the prenatal destiny of a child and its physical endowments. See Cousin’s 
Livre de Fortune (p. 41), ““Naturam autem, dei potestatem ordinariam. For- 
tunam uero, elus uoluntatem.” G. de Machaut (Le Fugement dou Roy de 
Navarre, \l. 3851 ff., Zuores, ed. Hoepffner, I, 270) makes Bonneiirté superior 
to Nature; in Simund de Freine’s Roman de Philosophie, \l. 331 ff., Nature 
controls Fortune’s acts. | 

2 I am aware that astrology, as it is generally used and as I have some- 
times used it here, is a pseudo-science and not a person; but, taking the hint 
from De Guilleville’s Pelerinage, I use the personified figure to cover con- 
veniently the idea of planetary influence as it was considered in the Middle 
Ages. 

3 See Albertus Magnus, Opera, IV, 67 (Ethicorum, lib. i, tr. vii, cap. vi, 
quoted in Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 199, n. 169); Pico 
della Mirandola, Opera, I, 353 (In Astrologiam, lib. iv, cap. ii, “‘Fortuita a 
Coelo non Esse”), and II, 373 (De Rerum Prenotione, lib. v, cap. viii, “Fa- 
tum... id est, syderum constitutionem cum quid aut nascitur, aut con- 
cipitur, aut inchoatur”’). 


ee 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 77 


expression; with them either Fortune or Astrology, or 
both, may be to blame for their sufferings." And we find 
spreading a general idea that Fortune’s gifts after all 
come from the stars. Pontano tells us, ‘Bona fortunae a 
coelo et stellis promitti.” ? And Gower, 


The chances of the world also, 
That we fortune clepen so, 
Among the mennes nacion 

Al is thurgh constellacion. 3 


There is no doubt that the people of the Middle Ages ac- 


tually believed in planetary influence.‘ Fortune, there- 


t See Fortune and the stars: Petrarch, Rime, ed. Mestica, p. 187 (canz. xv 
[xxviii], 93); Boccaccio, Ameto (Opere, XV, 190); Giusto de’ Conti, La Bella 
Mano, cap. ii (Lirichi Antichi, p. 178); Benivieni, Opere, p. 103%° (Bucolica, 
egl. 6); Burchiello, Sonetti, p. §9; Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 344 (son. xviil), 353 
(canz. v); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxviii, 150; Boiardo, Orlando Inna- 
morato, 1, xxii, 12; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poemi, ed. Carabba, p. 72; G. de 
Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 415, st. 2; Le Petit Iraittiet (Pierre 
Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles, p. 241, Mars and Saturn join with Fortune); 
Lydgate, Fall of Princes, heading of book iii (one should blame one’s own 
sins and not the stars or Fortune); Sibbald, Chronicle, III, 330, st. 1. 

2 Opera Omnia, II, 189°°; cf. 191°, “Qua é re liquido cernitur, fortunam, 
rerum quae 4 stellis geniturae promittuntur tempore, executricem esse, uel 
effectum esse ipsum potius.” Almost the Christian figure! 

3 Confessio Amantis, vii, 639; cf. prol., 525 (man is the cause of all woe). 
See Tatlock, Scene of the Franklin’s Tale Visited, p. 25. 

4 See especially Wedel’s The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology, i920 
(Yale Studies in English, No. 60); and Thorndike’s History of Magic and 
Experimental Science, N. Y., 1923, passim. For Chaucer’s belief in astrology, 
see Lounsbury’s Studies, 11, 497 ff., where an attempt is made to show Chau- 
cer’s incredulity; and, for a more persuasive account, suggesting Chaucer’s 
real faith in astrology of the more legitimate kind, see Tatlock’s paper in the 
Kittredge anniversary volume, pp. 339 ff., and his Scene of the Franklin’s Tale 
Visited. On p. 23 of the latter work he points out the part the heavens 
play in Troilus and Criseyde, ii, 680-686, iii, 617-628, and shows that in the 
Legend of Good Women (Il. 2584-2599) Hypermnestra got her “looks, char- 
acter, and fate” from the planets. Also Curry in Philol. Quarterly, IV, 1 ff., 
should be consulted. Cf. the Knight's Tale, A. 1086 ff., 1108-1109, 2033-2038, 
2450-2452 (Fortune, Fate, Destiny). See Piers Plowman, C. xv, 30 ff. 


78 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


fore, is indeed “‘executrice” of the “wierdes” that are 
written in the stars. 

The distinction between Fortune and the Fates, or be- 
tween Fortune and Destiny, is more difficult to settle. 
The abstract word “fate” as embodying the will of God 
was in the earliest mediaeval times accepted by the philo- 
sophers and the Church Fathers; ? but as early as Boe- 
thius Fate tended to become a changeable, almost a 
whimsical, force,3 and to approach Fortuna in manner if 


t See Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iii, 617 ff., and Man of Law’s Tale, B. 
190 ff., 295 ff.; De Guilleville, Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges, fol. \xx”°; 
James I, Kingis Quair, st. 147; Deschamps, Ziuores, IV, 332 (deccxiv); Boc- 
caccio, Comento sopra Dante (Opere, XI), pp. 157 ff.; Lydgate, Temple of 
Glas, ll. 1100 ff.; Jean de Meun’s Plaisant Feu du Dodechedron de Fortune 
(Lyons, 1581), a scheme of fortune-telling mixed with astrology. In Spanish 
fields, see Post’s Mediaeval Spanish Allegory, pp. 54 f., apropos of an alle- 
gory in the Decir of Francisco Imperial: “The eight stars are the seven planets 
and Fortune. The planets in turn bestow their beneficent influences... 
Fortune, as the universal mistress, sanctions and completes their gifts by her 
own indulgence ... and endows him with the graces of the twelve other 
faces, which are the signs of the zodiac.”” For connection between the planets, 
the seven ages, and the wheel of Fortune, see Boll’s Lebensalter. Cf. Bocchi, 
Symbolicae Quaestiones, symb. cxxxi. And see pp. 173 f., below. 

2 See Boethius, Cons. Philos., 1V, pr. vi; Albertus Magnus, Opera, II, g1- 
94 (Physicorum, lib. ii, tr. 11, caps. xix-xxi). Cf. Pontano, Opera Omnia, Il, 
139°°: “Itaque fatum ipsum digerere, explicare, administrare, disponere 
ordine suo, suoque loco, ac tempore, quae uidelicet prouidentia ipsa in sese 
congesta, ac prospecta habeat, et qua etiam ratione et uia gerenda sint,” etc. 

3 See the wheel figure, Cons. Philos., IV, pr. vi, 61 ff. This was accepted 
by the fathers: see Albertus Magnus, above, note 2. On the other hand, con- 
trast Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis, 1, §§ 88-89, “Tunc etiam... Haec 
mox ut Fata,” etc., quoted in Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 
164-165 (Fortune is called Nemesis; cf. Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 129). 
For Fate and the wheel, see Petrarch, Bucolicum Carmen, p. 141, |. 15 (cf. 
Seneca’s Thyestes, ll. 617-618, ‘‘Prohibetque Clotho stare fortunam, rotat 
omne fatum’’); Petrarch, Africa, ii, 293; Brant, Narrenschiff, ed. Simrock, p. 
86, 1. 10, “Da Clothds hand das Radchen dreht”’ (Brant knew Boethius — 
see his edition of the Cons. Philos., 1501, with the St. Thomas commentary); 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 79 


not in figure. Mediaeval writers never seem to be quite 
clear about the distinction between Fate and Fortune; 
they either blame both figures, or at least confuse the 
operations of the two. Boccaccio records some attempt 
among the poets to identify Fortuna with the second 
sister of the three Fates: “Sono appresso di quelli, che 
uogliono Lachesi esser quella, che noi chiamiamo For- 
tuna.” ? But it 1s obvious that Fortune was not lost 
among the Fates; rather, the Fates submitted to her.’ 


Laing, Scottish Worthies, p. 64; Wackernagel, Gliicksrad und die Kugel des 
Ghicks, in his Kleinere Schriften, 1, 249-250 (refers to Hemmerlin von Zi- 
rich). See also “fatal chaunce” in Lydgate’s Troy Book, 1, 3606, and in his 
Daunce of Machabree, p. 337, col. 1, st. 1. 

t See Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 301 (John of Altaville); Henricus Septi- 
mellensis, Trattato, 1730, p. 4; Gesta di Federico, \\. 1251 f.; Boccaccio, Te- 
seide, ix, 78 (Opere, IX, 331); also Ninfale Fiesolano, I, xxxiv (ibid., XVII, 14); 
Petrarch, Bucolicum Carmen, p. 165, 1. 159; Burchiello, Sonetti, p. 26; Aeneas 
Sylvius, Storia di Due Amanti, p. 80; Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 46 (Arcadia), 367 
(son. xliv), 404 (son. Ixxx), 422 (Farsa); Giov. Fiorentino, I/ Pecorone, I1, 168 
(xxiv, 2); Pontano, Carmina, I, 38 (Urania, ii, 58 ff.), 91 (ibid., 111, 507); 
Bracci, Canti Carnascialeschi, p. 33; Roman de Fauvel, \l. 2269 ff. (gives 
Fate or Destiny as Fortune’s second name); L’Escoufle, p. 135, ll. 4536-4537 
(“Com Fortune |’a destinée””); Benoit de Ste. Maure, Roman de Troie, IV, 
296, |. 28615; Froissart, Zuores, II, 109, ll. 3684 ff.; Alain Chartier, Zuores, 
Pp. 392, 607 f.; Gower, Vox Clamantis,i,1517 f., 1527 (cf. 1541-1547, 1986 ff., 
and ii, 158-159, 293-296); also Confessio Amantis, v, 4830, and Mirour de 
’Omme, |. 16006; Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, ll. 1233-1235, cf. 1248; also Troy 
Book, ii, 3201 ff., cf. 3218 ff.; 111, 1975 ff. (Fortune and Fate debate), 2898 ff., 
4922; iv, 4270 ff.; also his ““balade”’ to the Duchess of Gloucester, Anglia, 
XXVII, 388 (2), cf. 393 (27); Barbour, The Bruce, iv, 650 (one must “‘dre” 
one’s fortune); James I, Kingis Quair (see reference to Fortune, st. 160, |. 4, 
and cf. st. 191, ll. 1-4); Sibbald, Chronicle, III, 330, st. i. And see Cousin’s 
Livre de Fortune, plates 167 (“La Fortune Fatale”), 195 (the three Fates, 
“Fortunae et Fatorum Ministrae’’). 

2 Geneologia de gli Dei, p.11; see also his Comento sopra Dante (Opere, X1), 
p. 159. Cf. Gower, Vox Clamantis, vii, 1385 ff.; James I, Kingis Quair (see 
reference to Fortune in st. 24, and cf. st. 25, ll. 2-4, ‘‘the secund sistere”’). 

3 In Cousin’s plate 195 they are called her “‘servantes.”’ 


80 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


This glance at Fortune’s relations with other gods con- 
cludes our study of the material dealing with the extent 
and limits of her power. She is queen; she frequents the 
court; she controls all mundane affairs and gives all 
worldly gifts; she is responsible for tragedy in the higher 
as well as in the more primitive sense of the word; she 
threatens to dominate the Fates. Only with Nature and 
Astrology does she seem to share her influence. The 
problem of one’s endowment becomes, therefore, a ques- 
tion of “nature’s livery or fortune’s star.” ? 


Vv 


ACTIVITIES 


This section will be devoted to the themes that have to 
do with Fortune’s activities and methods of action, and 
the themes that are related to these topics although not 
directly connected with them. 

Fortune goes on a course of her own. That is, she goes 
her own way; and, although her route may not be so 
direct as that of Destiny, it is characteristic of Fortune.. 
We may follow her, she may intercept our paths, she may 
flee from us.? 

As the will of Fortuna was made known by lots at 
Praeneste, so she 1s never quite disassociated from sortes. 
In fact, the term appears frequently in accounts of her, 


* Further information concerning Fortune’s powers will appear in the 
chapter on her special functions and smaller cults. 

2 R. Lindsay, Cronicles, I, 32. She is a sort of will-o’-the-wisp. See 
Ovid, Tristia, I, 1x, 13, and V, xiv, 29-30; Novati, Carmina Medii Aevi, 
Pp: 44, st. vi; Petrarch, Africa, vii, 301 ff.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. 
Chichmaref, II, 479, ll. 180 ff.; Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, |. 1340; 
Lydgate, Troy Book, iii, 4053 f. Cf. Occasio, below, pp. 115 ff. 


- 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE SI 


generally as a synonym for her work or for the gifts she 
bestows.* 

Fortune enjoys exalting and debasing mankind as a 
game.? She also plays games with human beings, in 
which they may either win or lose according to their for- 
tune. Of these games the most common are dice? and 


t See Boethius, Cons. Philos., I, pr. iv, 58; Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 
XXT, 103 (no. 152, st. 4); Carmina Burana, p. 2 (i, st. 2); Henricus Septimel- 
lensis, Trattato, 1730, pp. 13, 16; Wright, Satirical Poets, Il, 256; Petrarch, 
Africa, v, 12 ff., and Rime, ed. Albertini, I, 237 (son. cxvii); Boccaccio, De 
Casibus, poem by Pontano, opposite index; Sannazaro, Opere, p. 387; Alberti, 
Opere, III, 215 (1/ Teog., ii), 277, 328; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 
221, III, 35; Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, p. 143, ll. 164 f.; 
Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, viii, 24; Raynaud, Rondeaux, p. 25; Gower, 
Vox Clamantis, i, 1529-1534, 1539; 11, 209-211, 331, 623-625; ili, 1; vil, 
1400 ff.; also Cronica Tripertita, 1,145 f., 111, 434 f., Mirour de l’Omme, |. 22091, 
and Confessio Amantis, v, 5309; Lydgate, Troy Book, 1, 1066 f.; ii, 1802; v, 
2182 f.; James I, Kingis Quair, st. 145 (““Onely to hir that has the cuttis 
two,” etc.). In Schoonhoven’s second emblem, “‘Sapiens supra Fortunam,” 
Fortune seems to be identified with Sors. 

2 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii, 27 ff.; Prudentius, Psychomachia, |. 
§25; Jerome’s commentary on Ecclesiasticus (Migne, vol. XXIII, col. 1085, 
B); Gedicht auf die Zerstirung Mailands, |. 45; Hildebert de Lavardin, De 
Exsilio Suo (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 1419); Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 338 
(John of Altaville); Boccaccio, Decameron, II, vii (Opere, I, 205); also De 
Casibus, p. 27 (“lubricum ludum”’); Donne Famose, p. 10 (cap. i); and Let- 
tere (Opere, XVII), pp. 33, 62; Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I*, 657, and Africa, 
vi, 390; Poliziano, Prose Volgari, p. 274; Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, vii, 59; 
Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VIII, 1; XVI, lxviii; Barbazan, Fadliaux, 1, 139, ll. 
129 ff.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 506, ll. 43 ff.; Chaucer, 
Troilus and Criseyde, v, 1134; Lydgate, Fabula Duorum Mercatorum, st. 
XCV1, 

3 See Chaucer, Knighi’s Tale, A. 1238, and Monk’s Tale, B. 3851; Gower, 
Mirour del Omme, \l. 14306, 22024, 22102-22103, and see the passage 22081 ff.; 
also Confessio Amantis, iil, 788, v, 2437; Lydgate, Beware of Doubleness, \l. 
73 ff. (Skeat, Chaucerian and other Pieces, p. 292); Gude and Godlie Ballatis, 
p. 215. Cf. Skeat’s note in the Oxford Chaucer, V, 143-144, n. 124. See 
Cousin, pl. 174. 


82 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


chess.t Jean de Meun also refers to Fortune’s game of 


shuttlecock, 
Aingois s’en joé a la pelote, 
Comme pucele nice et sote, 
Et giete a grant desordenance 
Richece, honor et reverance; ? 


and to the game of “boute-en-corroie.” 3 Deschamps 
draws her into a game of bowls.‘ 

Fortune, subduing mankind, makes sure of her prey by 
catching her victim in a net. Perhaps this idea is related 
to the conception of a Fortune of the sea; for man is ap- 
parently symbolized as a fish struggling in the weltering 
sea of life and finally caught by the goddess.§ 

Similarly, Fortune catches men on limed twigs, or 
snares them as if they were birds. They flutter about in 
the air until attracted by the luring branches, and then 
they are stuck in the lime; or she entices and entraps 
them.® Once having captured men, she puts her bridle 


* Roman de la Rose, \l. 6675, 6732; G. de Machaut, Reméde de Fortune, 
l.1191; Les Echecs Amoureux and Lydgate’s Reson and Sensuallyte; Furnivall, 
Originals and Analogues, App. (after p. 550), 1. 110; Chaucer, Book of the 
Duchesse, ll. 618 f., 652 ff.; Lydgate, Fall of Princes, prol., st. 26; and III, 
1, st. 34 (1554 ed., fol. Ixx; 1558 ed., fol. Ixvi); also Troy Book, ii, 1894, and v, 
1406. See the game of chess with God, in Gautier’s Miracles ed. Poquet, 
cols. 7—Io. 2 Roman de la Rose, \l. 6580-6583. 

3 Lines 6881 ff. 4 CEuores, V, 354 (mlxi, 25 ff.). 

5 See Boccaccio, Filocopo, iv (Opere, VIII, 17); Sacchetti, Novelle, III, 266- 
267; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I1, 135; Cousin, Livre de Fortune, plates 43, 
10s. Cf. the chain of Fortune, below, p. 98, n. 1. 

° Cf. Fortuna Viscata in ancient Rome, noticed in Smith College Studies in 
Modern Languages, 111, 154; Petrarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, II, 337 (son. xx); 
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poesie (1801), I, 226; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, II, 64; 
Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, A. 1490, and Monk’s Tale, B. 3603-3604; Lydgate, 
Troy Book, ii, 1869 ff.; Wallace, ii, 144; Cranstoun, Satirical Poems, I, 27, 
ll. 729-730. See Cousin’s drawing, ‘“‘La Fortuna avec les Gluaux,” Livre de 
Fortune, pl. 139; and De Guilleville’s tree full of nests, below, pp. 138 f. 


rd 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 83 


on them and thenceforth they are subject to her sway.* 
But mankind may resist Fortune and oppose the pagan 
remedy of fortitude to her cruelties.2, One may even take 
courage and defy or curse her. We remember that “ For- 
tune aids the bold.” 4 


* Petrarch, Rime, ed. Mestica, p. 374 (son. ccxxvii); ed. Albertini, II, 318 
(canz. iii); Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXIII, xcii; De Jennaro, Canzonieére, 
P- 375, no. 102; Roman de la Rose, |. 6515 (she uses a hangman’s noose); 
Alex. Montgomerie, Ane Invectione against Fortun, \. 40 (Poems, 1887, p. 130). 
See Alciati’s emblems, Augsburg, 1531, sig. A 7; and, for a different figure but 
with the same accompanying verse (which calls the figure Nemesis), see the 
Paris editions of 1534, 1535, p. 17 in each case. All three drawings are 
printed in H. Green’s Fontes Quatuor. Cf. Cousin, pl. 177. 

2 Boccaccio, Decameron, X, x (Opere, V, 133, 135); also Filostrato, proem. 
(tbid., XIII, 6); Frezzi, Quadriregio, 1, 277 (lib. iv, cap. vi), ll. 22 ff.; Lorenzo 
de’ Medici, Poemi, ed. Carabba, p. 101; Froissart, Méliador, II, 238-239; 
Gower, Mirour de lOmme, ll. 15289 ff. Cf. the use of strength against her: 
Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. i, 56 f.; Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 31 (Nigel 
Wireker); Cousin, Livre de Fortune, pl. 93, ‘La Patience triomphe de la For- 
tune.” 

3 Boccaccio, Decameron, VI, ii (Opere, III, 130); X, 1, 11 (édid., V, 16, 22); 
also De Casibus, p. 68; Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 427, 436; Benoit de Ste. Maure, 
Roman de Troie, IV, 75, 1. 24496; Charles d’ Orléans, Poésies, 1, 59; Chaucer, 
Clerk’s Tale, E. 898; Gower, Cronica Tripertita, 11, 435, and Confessio Aman- 
tis, vili, 1066, 1584-1585; Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 407 ff., 3915; Wallace, viii, 
320; Dunbar, Fen3eit Freir, \. 95 (Poems, I, 142); David Lindsay, Squyer 
Meldrum, |. 826 (Works, ed. Laing, I, 185); G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. 
Chichmaref, I, 254, 1. 33. 

4 Cf. Aeneid, x, 284; Ovid, Metam., x, 586; Claudian, epistle iv, 1.9; Livy, 
Historia, lib. iv, cap. 37. See Gesta di Federico, \\. 1693, 2710, 2817; Boc- 
caccio, Decameron, VI, iv (Opere, III, 137, Fortune aids the fearful here); also 
Fiammetta, vi (ibid., V1, 152), Filocopo, iv (ibid., VIII, 159), and Ameto (ibid., 
XV, 159); Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, II, x, 2; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 
XIII, Ixvii; Pontano, Carmina, Il, 392 (Eridanus, II, xxxi, 9-10); Guic- 
ciardini, Opere Ined., 1, 330, 373 (“come é in proverbio,” Fortune helps those 
who help themselves); Jean le Seneschal, Les Cent Ballades, p. 17, \l. 13 f.5 
Sieper, Les Echecs Amoureux, p. 65; G. de Machaut, Livre du Voir-Dit, p. 90, 
1. 2106; Chaucer, Troi/us and Criseyde, iv, 600 (cf. ll. 1587-1589, also Les 
Echecs Amoureux and G. de Machaut, just referred to); Gower, Vox Claman- 
tis, vi, 969; and Confessio Amantis, vii, 3347-3348, 4902-4903. Contrast 


84 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Yet sometimes she remains hostile, and we have a war 
between her and man. She is often mentioned specifically 
as an enemy,' and still oftener the war with her is either 


alluded to or described.? We hear of her blows and of the 


wounds she causes; 3 and there are direct references to her 


Froissart, Zuvres, I, 387, ll. 20-21. See inscription on Picinelli’s drawing, in 
his Mundus Symbolicus, 1,155 (lib. iii, cap. xix, 46); cf. Schoonhoven, Em- 
blemata, 1618, p. 15. 

* Alanus de Insulis, Summa de Arte Praedicatoria, cap. xiii (Migne, vol. 
CCX, col. 137); Boccaccio, Decameron, III, vii (Opere, Il, 74); also Filocopo, 
iv (tdid., VIII, 134, 155, 162); Teseide, ii, 15, iv, 41, v, 10 (zdid., IX, 61, 133, 
153); Rime, canz. iv, 10 (ibid., XVI, 118); L’Urbano (ibid., XV1), pp. 9, 28, 
45, 56; and Lettere (ibid., XVII), p. 6; Sercambi, Novel/e, ed. Renier, p. 406 
(no. 108); Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 95 (Arcadia), 344 (son. xviii); Alberti, 
Opere, III, 277, 285; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, Il, 1, 4; Philippe de Beau- 
manoir, La Manekine, \l. 3325 f. (Geuores, I, 105); G. de Machaut, Poésies, 
ed. Chichmaref, I, 170 (‘Se Fortune ne le tient 4 amy”); Chaucer, Monk’s 
Tale, B. 3868 (“adversarie”); Gower, Confessio Amantis, iv, 3408 (“fo”); 
Alex. Montgomerie, Sen Fortun is my Fo (Poems, 1887, p. 185); Bannatyne 
MS., II, 655, 1. 41; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, I, x (“rubella”); XXII, lxx; 
Trissino, Italia Liberata, 1, 340 (“‘ribella”); Machiavelli, Capitolo di Fortuna 
(Opere, VII, 370); Sacchetti, Novel/e, III, 266. 

2 See Lactantius (Migne, vol. VI, col. 437); Alanus de Insulis, as in note 1 
above; Carducci, Cantilene e Ballate, p. 109, ll. 1 ff.; Aeneas Sylvius, De Viris 
Illustribus, p. 38; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xxi, 44; Alberti, Opere, II, 
34 (Della Fam., i); Gareth, Rime, II, 324; Chevalier Errant, § vi, summa- 
rized in Gorra’s Studi, p. 53 (the battle between the barons and the followers 
of Fortune is guided by Coup de Fortune); Froissart, Géuvres, I, 84 (Il. 
1090 f.), 141 (I. 1860); II, 265, 269; Christine de Pisan, Livre du Chemin, p. 7, 
].149; Alain Chartier, Zuores, pp. $34, 747; Le Petit Traittiet (Pierre Mi- 
chault’s Dance aux Aveugles,p. 241); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 1, 56-57, 133 
(“armée de Fortune’”’); Furnivall, Originals and Analogues, p. 166 (sources of 
Clerk’s Tale, “‘assalto della nimica fortuna”’); 4wntyrs of Arthure, st. xxi, |. 
257; Gower, Confessio Amantis, vi, 1517, 1610; Dunbar, In Asking sowld Dis- 
cretion be, \. 44 (Poems, II, 86); Gregory Smith, Specimens of Middle Scots, pp. 
74-75 (The Portous of Nobleness); Poésie Ital. Ined., 111, 46 (Fortune, roused in 
wrath, comes crying vengeance). 

3 Boethius, Cons. Philos., III, pr. i, 6; Carmina Burana, p. 47 (Ixxvii, st. 1, 
“vulnera”); Boccaccio, Decameron, II, viii (Opere, 1, 220); Fiammetta, ix, 


a! 


IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 85 


weapons, which seem to be usually arrows, darts, or 
javelins.* 

Such are the activities of Fortune, and we have traced 
her steps from game to earnest. These activities obvi- 
ously suit her character perfectly; for she is just the 
envious, vindictive creature to throw dice with mankind 
and shout her laugh of triumph when she wins, to set 
traps for the sufferer, to snare the unwary, to wage petty 
warfare on the defiant. 


VI 


This study of Fortune’s activities is by no means com- 
plete; other themes will be discussed in connections more 
appropriate to their particular significance, especially 
those which are concerned with her dwelling-place and 
her wheel. 

All that we have noticed are used frequently by the 


(ibid., VI, 203); Filocopo, i (ibid., VII, 55-56); Rime, canz. v (ibid., XVI, 122); 
Donne Famose, p. 277 (cap. Ixxxili); De Casibus, pp. 26, 120, 145, 253; Al- 
berti, Opere, III, 279; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), III, 36; Pulci, Mor- 
gante Maggiore, xvii, 2 (I become a target); Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, 
xvii, 11; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XX XVII, xi; XLIV, lxii; Bembo, Rime, 
Pp- 94, son. cix; Roman de la Rose, ll. 5900 f.; Alain Chartier, Ziuores, p. 627 
(“bleca”); Chaucer, Clerk’s Tale, E. 812. 

t See Medin, Lamenti, pp. 69-70, Il. 118 ff. (notice “‘con furor ful- 
minando’”’); cf. Molinier, Essai sur Octovien de Saint-Gelais, p. 279 (“de 
foudroyant tonnerre . . . sagiter”). See also Dante, Paradiso, xvii, 25 ff. 
(suggestion that arrows are Fortune’s weapons); Faral, Recherches, p. 48 
(darts); Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 246, 262 (“‘iacula,” “tela”’); Deschamps, 
Ceuores, IV, 238, ll. 47 f. (lance); Alain Chartier, vores, p. 633 (fortune 
‘“‘archiere””); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, II, 34 (“V’arc de Fortune’’); Ray- 
naud, Rondeaux, p. 57, |. 12 (“verges de Fortune’’); Cousin, Livre de Fortune, 
plates 13, 15 (drawings of Fortune with arrows); Gower, Vox Clamantis, ii, 
122 (“arma”). For Fortune’s armor, see Lydgate’s Fabula Duorum Merca- 
torum, |. 668 (‘‘her habiriownys of steel”); Carmina Burana, p. 233 (no. 174, 
st. 3, “clypeum,” shield). 


86 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


mediaeval writers, but I have taken only the most com- 
mon examples into consideration. Their customary set- 
ting should be observed in passing; for although it is not 
precisely a literary formula, yet it is so frequently em- 
ployed in the accounts of Fortune that its importance 
must be noted here as the chief medium of expression for 
the tradition of the goddess. This favorite setting is the 
form of direct apostrophe, perhaps used, especially in the 
Middle Ages, as a substitute for the prayer of the ancient 
Roman. At any rate, it is an exceedingly prominent fea- 
ture in the ritual of the mediaeval cult;* probably no 
other Roman divinity receives so many addresses in this 
form. And Fortune herself sometimes speaks in reply or 
in defence.? 

Within settings like these come the long, detailed dis- 
cussions that we have described. The apostrophe, the 
response of Fortune, the themes themselves, are as a rule 
delightfully consistent with the idea of a goddess. The 
confusion with type seldom occurs. Possibly such incon- 
gruities in the descriptions as that of two separate faces, 
or of a face part white and part black, or of one eye laugh- 
ing and the other weeping, may result from introducing 
momentarily the idea of the abstraction; but Fortune’s 
smile and frown, her characterization as step-mother and 
harlot, her amusements and games, are all part of a 


* See Hildebert de Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 
1418); Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, passim; Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 
XXI, 102 (no. 152); Carmina Burana, pp. 1, 47 (Ixxvi a); Giornale Storico, 
XIV, 33 (Christian Fortune); etc., etc. 

2 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii; Henricus Septimellensis, Trattato, pp. 
15-16, etc.; Giornale Storico, XIV, 33; Volpi, Rime di Trecentisti Minori, pp. 
210 ff.; Pierre de la Broche, in Monmerqué and Michel’s Théé@tre Frangais, 
pp. 209 ff.; etc. 


__ IN MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE 87 


; - splendidly visualized image of the ‘goddess. The astonish- 
F ing richness of these treatments in mediaeval literature, 
i ~ compared with the accounts in classical times, certainly 
a Betisecomes an argument worthy of attention for the sur- 
_ vival of the goddess, at least in the mediaeval imagina- 


CHAPTER III 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 
; ‘HE philosophy of Fortuna, the various themes and 


formulae used in describing her, and the literary dis- 
cussions in general, have brought out characteristics of 
her nature; but as a rule, unless we have chosen for the 
moment to draw special conclusions, they have not made 
clear what are the particular duties of the goddess. We 
have seen from a study of her gifts what she has in her 
control, and from a study of her relations with Nature 
and Astrology what are some of her limitations. It will 
now be our purpose to discover what are her positive 
functions. 

In considering ancient Rome, I have attained a satis- 
factory method of procedure, I think, by observing in 
what connections the goddess is mentioned.* There the 
names of the divisions of the great cult, or of the smaller 
functionary cults, were already furnished. One can work 
from the known to the unknown. Already informed as to 
what the goddess 1s supposed to do, one can look on while 
she is doing it. In the Middle Ages we shall have to work 
in the other direction and formulate the cults of Fortune 
from the chief activities with which we find her concerned. 

In thus using the term “cult,” I do not mean to imply 
that in mediaeval times any formal recognition was given 
to the separate aspects of the goddess. And yet there was 


* Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, Il], 131-177. 


al 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 89 


recognition of a kind, conscious or unconscious, on the 
part of the people. My formulation of these interests will 
have failed if it appears to be random; if, after examining 
it, the reader is unable to classify almost any allusion to 
the goddess as discovering her in one of these special 
functions. My purpose is to make clear that Fortune’s 
duties suggest themselves from the passages in question, 
and that the whole sequence of references to her in the 
Middle Ages classifies itself automatically in separate 
lines of successive allusions to the goddess in one or an- 
other of these aspects. 

The chief cults that I have found in the mediaeval field 
are these: (1) the Fortune of Love; (2) Fortuna the 
Guide; (3) Fortune of the Sea; (4) the Fortune of Com- 
bat; (5) the Fortune of Fame; (6) Personal Fortuna; (7) 
Fortuna Publica; (8) the Fortune of Time; (g) the For- 
tune of Death. All but the last two, it will be observed, 
cover the work otherwise assigned to Lachesis; the eighth 
and ninth invade the territory controlled by Atropos. 
One might object that these divisions comprehend the 
whole extent of human interest. Love, war, and the sea, 
someone might say, include about all that man cared for, 
outside of religion, in the Middle Ages. This is true ina 
measure. Fortune, when she dominates at all, does domi- 
nate in the crises of life, and she appears at important 
moments. But, after all, these divisions cover definite 
departments of life; they are not vague classifications in- 
cluding all sorts of related activities. Fortune appears 
quite specifically in charge of a vessel, she actually turns 
the tide of war, she borrows the hour-glass from Father 
Time. Furthermore, the cults “Personal Fortuna” and 
“Fortuna the Guide” have not so wide a scope even as 


90 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


that of war or of the sea. We should have no particular 
right to expect Fortune to guide, or to have a personal re- 
gard for, the individual. These cults, then, are specialized 
in their functions. A classification that simply divided 
life in general according to its activities and then related 
Fortune’s work to those activities would indeed be at 
once haphazard and hazardous. That such is not the case 
in the divisions of Fortune’s great cult which I have given 
will appear, I hope, in our present study. 

We shall now take up these nine cults and analyze each 
of them to see its particular application to mediaeval life 
and its special meaning for us. 


(1) THE Fortune or Love 


The personification, Love,’ did not give up the control 
of his own affairs without a struggle. One must not sup- 
pose that he was entirely supplanted by Fortune. Some- 
times, indeed, it seems as if Fortune got her power in 
love-affairs, not by replacing the God of Love, but by be- 
stowing or withholding her gifts of riches and glory which 
would bring the lover to his lady more easily. Why, after 
all, should Fortune dabble in love-affairs anyway? Per- 
haps because the character of the God of Love is very 
much like hers. As early as the eleventh or twelfth cen- 
tury the similarity between Fortune and Love had been 
recognized in a poem by Hildebert de Lavardin, De Infi- 
delitate Fortunae et Amoris Mundi: ? 


* Between the two figures, the masculine and feminine deities, I shall not 
distinguish. They are the same in function, and were confused in the Middle 
Ages. See Neilson, Origins and Sources of the Court of Love, pp. 26, 27, 36, etc. 

2 “Worldly love” rather than “love of the world.” The poem is in 
Migne’s Patrologia Latina, vol. CLXXI, cols. 1423-1424, and is described in 
Notices et Extraits, XXVIIP, 352, no. xli. 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS gl 


Both Fortune and Love are faithless. They give no honey without 
some gall. Fortune raises men and sinks them again. Love blan- 
dishes and then burns men. 


Tempus, amor, fortuna rotam comitatur euntem, 
Casus illa rotae, temperat illa uires. 
Stante rota fortuna fauet; cadit haec, premit illam. 


Love changes and nourishes sighs; Fortuna begets fear. Joy is the 
beginning, grief the end, of both. Both turn darkness into day and 
day into darkness. Cares accompany them both, and with them go 
tears, labor, and groans. Their honey contains poison. Neither 
deity is true. Some men are broken by one, and some by the other. 


But some writers make a distinction between Love and 
Fortune, representing one as obstructing the work of the 
other, or making them at odds somehow, or at least not in 
complete union.t So 


*tis a question left us yet to prove, 
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.? 


And the lover asks Fortune, “‘Che hanno le cose d’Amore 
a fare con teco?”’ 3 


* See Boccaccio, Decameron, V, 1 (Opere, III, 21), and Teseide, v, 55 
(sbid., IX, 168); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 28 (son. xviii), 89 (sest. 
v), and Poemi, ed. Carabba, p. 21; La Tenzone d’ Amore e di Fortuna, in 
Poliziano’s Stanze, etc. (Carducci’s text, ed. Donati, 1910), p. 230 (summa- 
rized in Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, \I1, 220); Ariosto, Orlando 
Furioso, XI, lv, and Rime e Satire, son. i; L’Escoufle, p. 153, ll. 5160 ff.; G. de 
Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, I, 229 (cclxiii, 17 ff., where Fortune seems 
to be more concerned with her gifts; cf. p. 216, ccxlili); also Geuores, ed. 
Hoepftner, II, 318 (Dit de’ Alerion, ll. 2282 ff.), and Livre du Voir-Dit, p. 367, 
xlvi (gifts); Christine de Pisan, Gewores, Il, 64, ll. 513 ff. (gifts); Alex. Mont- 
gomerie, Poems, 1887, p. 192, ll. 36 ff. (““Love maid my chose, bot Fortun 
maid my chance,” etc.). 

2 Hamlet, IXI, 11, 212-213. Cf. Burchiello, Sonetti, p. 237: 


Chiariscimi, chi ha maggior potenza, 
O Amor, o Fortuna, o Libertate. 


3 Boccaccio, Fiammetta, v (Opere, VI, 104 f.). 


92 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Fortune and Love become associated in work, however. 
They are both accused of causing trouble for lovers, and 
their names are linked.? In Li Romanz de la Poire, Amors, 
seated before the throne of Fortune, tells how lovers are 


treated by the goddess: 


Celui qui leaument eime, celui ai chier 
Et le voil hautement entor moi aluchier. 
Mes li fax qui me ment et me sert de trichier, 
De la roe vilment |’estuet jus trebuchier. 


Fortune sanz reproche fet tot quanque je loe. 
Cels que de mon dart toche, met en haut sor la roe, 
Et s’autres i aproche, Fortune le descroe 
Et estendu le coche tot envers en la boe. 


Fortune then gives an account of her usual characteristics 
and tells how she casts men down. Those who are faithful 
in love suffer no injury.” 

Here the Court of Love has become practically the 
Court of Fortune, and clearly Fortune is in chief power: 


* Poesie Ital. Ined., 11, 166; Il], 32; Cino da Pistoia, Poesie, ed. Ciampi, 
1826, p. 60 (canz. v, Amor and Ventura); Boccaccio, Teseide, iv, 11 (Opere, 
IX, 123), and Filostrato, Il, cxxxii (ibid., XIII, 75); Petrarch, Rime, ed. Al-. 
bertini, I, 103 (canz. vii, ““Ne mai stato giojoso’’), 167 (son. Ixxxv, “Amor, 
Fortuna, e la mia mente schiva,” etc.), 280 (canz. xvi, “or all’ estremo,” 
etc.); II, 28 (son. vi, ““Non basta ben,” etc.); ed. Mestica, pp. 316 (son. 
clxxxvil), 323 (son. cxciii); Sannazaro, Opere, pp. 341 (son. xii), 367 (son. 
xliv); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 10 (son. vili), 35 (son. xxv), 53 
(canz. ill), 111 (son. Ixx); also Poesie (1801), 1,67; Machiavelli, Opere, VII, 385; 
Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, p. 248 (Rispetti Spicciolati, 
XXXvili); Benivieni, Opere, p. 81 (Bucolica, egl. 1); Alberti, Opere, V, 361 (egl. 
1, “Amor ne inretae tiene”); Trissino, Tutte le Opere, 1, 361 (serv.); Boiardo, 
Orlando Innamorato, I, xii, 60,77; Roman de la Rose, \l. 6896 f.; G. de Ma- 
chaut, Guvres, ed. Hoepffner, I, 88, ll. 820 ff.; also Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, 
I, 204; Il, 434; and Livre du Voir-Dit, pp. 26, 77, 2775 309, 332; Deschamps, 
Cuores, III, 371; IV, 178 (decxiv, 12); Alain Chartier, Evores, p. 624; Ray- 
naud, Rondeaux, pp. 81-82 (xclii), 104 (cxxi); Cousin, plates 67 and 69. 

2 See the whole passage, Romanz, ed. Stehlich, ll. 25 ff. For lovers on the 
wheel, see Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iv, 323 ff. 


\ 


FUNCTIONS AND. CULTS 93 


Mout est Fortune sage et nos assez savon. 
Ele quelt mon passage, grant seignorie avon,? 


says Love. In the Panthére d’ Amours,? and in the Kingis 
Quair,3 Fortune seems to be in complete control. Cases of 
love are finally referred to her decision, and the Court of 
Fortune appears to be an established fact. 

Perhaps Fortune earliest takes over the complete man- 
agement of a love-affair in the case of Abélard and Hé- 
loise, and here she assumes her powers with a burst of 
splendor. She has parted the lovers, as she often does, 
and so they suffer. Heloise writes: 


O si fas sit dici crudelem mihi per omnia Deum! o inclementem 
clementiam! o infortunatam fortunam, quae jam in me uniuersi 
conaminis sui tela in tantum consumpsit, ut quibus in alios saeuiat 
jam non habeat; plenam in me pharetram exhausit, ut frustra jam 
alii bella ejus formident. Nec si ei adhuc telum aliquod superesset, 
locum in me uulneris inueniret. Unum inter tot uulnera metuit, ne 
morte supplicia finiam. Et cum interimere non cesset, interitum 
tamen quem accelerat timet. O me miserarum miserrimam! infeli- 
cium infelicissimam, quae quanto uniuersis in te feminis praelata 
sublimiorem obtinui gradum, tanto hinc prostrata grauiorem in te et 
in me pariter perpessa sum casum! Quanto quippe altior ascen- 
dentis gradus, tanto grauior corruentis casus. Quam mihi nobilium 
ac potentium feminarum fortuna unquam preponere potuit aut 
eequare? 4 


Here indeed are the slings and arrows of outrageous For- 
tune! From this time on, Fortuna is found meddling 
more or less in love-affairs.5 


* Romanz, \\. 29-30. 2 Lines 1918 ff. 3 Stanza 144, ll. 6-7. 

4 Epistle iv (Migne, vol. CLX XVIII, col. 194). Héloise later sees the hand 
of God in her suffering: “Ira Domini manum suam super nos uehementer 
aggrauauit, et immaculatum non pertulit torum qui diu ante sustinuerat 
pollutum.” 

5 See, e.g., Boccaccio, Filocopo, i (Opere, VII, 6); also Teseide, viii, 96 (ibid., 
IX, 292); Filostrato, Il, lxxvii (ibid., XIII, 57); Ameto (ibid., XV, 144); Pe- 


94 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


She is mentioned explicitly as taking a particular part;? 
she aids the bold;? she gives the guerdons of love;* she 
guides the lovers; + she brings them together and makes 
them fall in love; § she brings about the consummation of 
their love;® and she causes the birth of their children.’ 
Boccaccio describes the methods of the goddess in the 
following complaint: 


Thou dost give and thou dost take away. But while I was still 
young and knew not what a great part thou dost hold in the rule of 
love, thou, “delle passioni dell’ anima donatrice,” didst make me 
enamoured as thou didst wish; I fell in love with that youth, whom 
only thou put before mine eyes, at the moment I thought myself to 


trarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, I, 272 (son. clii); Il, 199 (Irionfo d’ Amore, iv); 
Sercambi, Novelle, ed. Renier, p. 226 (no. 64); Masuccio, J/ Novellino, p. 388; 
Alain Chartier, Zuores, pp. 625-626, etc. 

* Boccaccio, Decameron, X, viii (Opere, V, 76, 78); Alberti, Opere, III, 
325; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 15 (son. xiii); also Poemi, ed. Ca- 
rabba, p. 11 (Selve ad’ Amore, i); G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 
357, 510; Christine de Pisan, Gewores, I, 25 (Cent Balades, xxiv, 13-14); 
Gower, Confessio Amantis, i, 2624 ff.; Lydgate, Fabula Duorum Mercatorum, 
ll. 439-441. 

2 Boccaccio, Filostrato, IV, Ixxiii (Opere, XIII, 137). Cf. above, p. 83, n. 4. 

3 Jean le Seneschal, Les Cent Ballades, p. 162, ll. 25 ff.; Froissart, Zuores, 
II, 406 (xxxv). 

4 Jean le Seneschal, Les Cent Ballades, p. 143, ll. 13 ff.; Gower, Balades, x, 
2 (Works, I, 346). 

5 Carmina Burana, p. 189, no. 114, st. 4; Boccaccio, Decameron, IV, iv 
(Opere, II, 192); X, x (ébid., V, 136); Masuccio, I/ Novellino, p. 349 (gives a 
spouse); Giov. Fiorentino, I[/ Pecorone, II, 135 (xxii, 2); Aeneas Sylvius, 
Storia di Due Amanti, p. 29 (gives a spouse); Bembo, Opere, I, 53 (Degli 
Asolani, lib. i); Jean le Seneschal, Les Cent Ballades, p. 159; Chaucer, Legend 
of Good Women, \l. 1044 ff., 1609 f.; Gower, Confessio Amantis, 1, 1859; also 
Balades, vi, 2 (Works, I, 343); Alex. Montgomerie, Poems, 1887, p. 173 (xxix, 
II-I2). 

® Boccaccio, Decameron, VIII, vii (Opere, IV, 68); Chaucer, Troilus and 
Criseyde, iii, 1667 ff.; Lydgate, Troy Book, 1, 2676 ff., 2758 ff.; cf. James I, 
Kingis Quair, st. 93; Alex. Montgomerie, Poems, 1887, p. 182, ll. 25-27. 

7 Alberti, Opere, III, 275, 302. 


‘ 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 95 


be furthest from loving. When thou feltest me bound indissolubly in 
heart, thou, unstable one, soughtest to make the pleasure of my love 
noisome to me. Sometimes hast thou subdued the spirit with vain 
and tricky deceits, and sometimes subjected the eyes to thee; for 
our love published abroad could do no harm. Oftener, as thou didst 
wish, ugly words of my lover came to mine ears, and some from me 
went to him, to create hatred between us. But is the virtue of the 
mind subject unto thee? Cannot our wisdom prevail over thee? 
What can aid against thee? Thou hast a thousand ways to harm 
thine enemies, all of them deceitful. I thought I was secure. If I 
were young, I might have defence now. Thou hast not kept to thine 
own fields, but hast put thy scythe into another’s grain. What have 
the things of love to do with thee? Thou gavest me treasures, riches, 
fields — why not extend thy wrath to these bounties? Thou hast 
left me these which are of no avail to console me. If ever thou hast 
been pricked with the arrows of love, thou mightest offer counsel. 
All are happy but me. My name is a by-word among the people who 
once told the fame of my beauty. Begin to have pity on me, since I 
yearn to praise thee, to honor thy majesty. At the hour thou turnest 
back to greet me, I shall put up my statue with a tablet, saying, 
“This is Fiammetta, called by Fortune from deepest woe to greatest 
happiness.” It will be seen by all. 


As we see here, Fortune is generally at the last unfavor- 
able to one or both of the lovers. She is hard-hearted, 
envious, positively hostile, and torments them.? It was 


* Fiammetta, v (Opere, VI, 103 ff.). 

4 Boccaccio, Opere, VIII, 274-275 (Filocopo, v); XIII, 2, 6 (“nemica’’), 
111 (“invidiosa”), 147 (“nemica’’), 251 (all in Fi/ostrato); XV, 135 (Ameto); 
XVII, 88 (Ninfale Fiesolano); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 11, 27, 38 
(“iniqua,e ria”), 48 (“vieta, lo interrompe, e spezza’’), 61 (“iniqua e dura”); 
also Poemi, ed. Carabba, p. 21; Luca Pulci, in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Poesie 
(1801), II, 98; Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, pp. 155 (Il. 
306 f.), 225 (“‘contrapporre”’); Alberti, Opere, III, 277 (‘‘nemica’’), 307, 
324-325; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xiii, 40, and xxv, 54 (allowed but 
one day of love); Gareth, Rime, II, 155 (son. cxxxii); Bembo, Rime, p. 87 
(son. xcv); Marie de France, Guigemar, ll. 537 ff. (Lais, no.1); L’Escoufle, pp. 
234 f., ll. 7824 f. See especially Roman de la Rose, discussed in Smith College 
Studies in Modern Languages, IV, 6-9; Philippe de Beaumanoir, Fehan et 
Blonde, \l. 1629 ff. (Zeuvres, II, 52-53, “Voutrageuse . . . pleine d’envie,” 


96 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


she who was so cruel to Pyramus and Thisbe.” She is par- 
ticularly noted for separating lovers.’ 

Thus Fortuna actually does or undoes the work of the 
God of Love. We may remember that in many ways her 
traits, as depicted in the preceding chapter, resemble 
those of the love deity. Fortune is blind, and slings ar- 
rows or darts at her victims.’ These divinities, Fortune 
and Love, become sufficiently identified for Venus to take 
over the characteristics of her sister goddess, and by the 
time of Les Echecs Amoureux we find Venus turning a 
wheel and exalting and debasing mankind: 


etc.); G. de Machaut, Cwores, ed. Hoepffner, I, 84, ll. 725 ff.; also Poésies ed. 
Chichmaref, I, 81 (“‘contraire’’), 171 (“‘dure’’), 176 (cxcv), 182 (ccii); II, 419 
(ll. 139 fF.), 557 (Il. 18 fF.), 638 (ili, 3 ff.); also Livre du Voir-Dit, pp. 67 (keeps 
the lovers apart), 264; Froissart, Gevores, I, 142 (Il. 1880 ff.), 307 (Il. 2923 f.), 
311 (Il. 3045 fF.); II, 18 (ll. 580 f.), 257 (Il. 37 £F.), 258 (Il. 56 fF.), 271 (Il. 75 ff.); 
Deschamps, Cuores, I, 132 f. (xlv, “ Dangier vient”’); IV, 5 (Il. 19-20); V, 342, 
ll. 16 ff.; X, p. Ixxxvii (“Denger me martire”); Christine de Pisan, Zuores, I, 
34 (Cent Balades, xxxiii, 19 f.); II, 135 (ll. 789 ff.), 144 (Il. 1101 ff.), 218 (Il. 
1965 ff.); III, 159 (Il. 3128 ff., ““preste ... de destruire Les amans”); Alain 
Chartier, Zuvres, pp. 641, 678 (“dure et male”); Raynaud, Rondeaux, pp. 44 
(xlviii, 4-5, “tourmente’’), 133 (clvi, cf. clvii, clx), 142 (1. 8, “rigours”), 154—- 
155 (clxxxiv), 157 (clxxxvii); Charles d’ Orléans, Poésies, I, 55, 156; II, 87 
(rond. xvi, also printed in the works of René d’Anjou, III, 202), 164 (by 
Madame d’ Orléans); Jean de Garenciéres, Vous m’avez, ed. A. Piaget, in 
Romania, XXII, 477, st. ix; Lydgate, Troy Book, v, 2981; also The Flour of 
Curtesye, ll. 75-76 (Skeat, Chaucerian and other Pieces, p. 268); Child, Ba/- 
lads, no. 150 (Robin Hood and Maid Marian), st. 6. Cf. above, p. 84, n. I. 

* Sercambi, Novelle, ed. Renier, p. 326 (no. 93). 

2 Boccaccio, Fiammetta, 11 (Opere, VI, 44); Filostrato (ibid., XIII, 153, 
177); L’Urbano (ibid., XVI), p. 43. Cf. Nicole de Margival, Panthére d’ 
Amours, ll. 143 f.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, I, 209 (ccxxxii); 
IT, 354-355 (ll. 69 ff.), 446 (ll. 99 f.); also Livre du Voir-Dit, pp. 67, 278; G. 
Paris, Chansons, pp. 88 ff. (xcii, cf. xciii); Melusine, ll. 3745-3747; Chaucer, 
Troilus and Criseyde, v, 1745 ff., and Squire’s Tale, F. 576; Alex. Montgom- 
erie, Poems, ed. Stevenson, 1910, p. 195 (Wo Worth the Fall of Fortounis 
Quheill). 

3 See the parallelism established in Pierre Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles. 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 97 


Car elle [Venus] fait a son conuent 
Perdre leur bon Regnon souuent 
Et a plusieurs gloire et honneur 
Tant quelle fait serf le seigneur 
Et le plus hault monte descendre 
Et pour tout a briefz mos comprendre 
Elle fait auanchier fortune 

Oultre la maniere commune 

Et li fait destourner sa Roe 

Si que chil versent en la boe 

Qui estoient ou plus hault chief 
Et les Ramaine a tel meschief 
Quil ne sen peuent Jamais terdre. 


We may agree with Gower: 


For if ther evere was balance 

Which of fortune stant governed, 

I may wel lieve as I am lerned 

That love hath that balance on honde.? 


In Lydgate, too, the confusion is striking. 

The association between Venus and Fortune might be 
studied even further. Fortune’s house is often in the 
midst of a stormy sea; Venus “fleteth in a se,” 


To schewe pe trowble and adversite 
Pat is in Love, and his stormy lawe, 
Whiche is beset with many sturdy wawe, 
Now calm, now rowe, who-so takep hede.4 


t Sieper’s ed., pp. 84-85 (fol. 50 b in MS. of the poem). Cf. Gower, Con- 
fessio Amantis, i, 42 ff. (love is represented as masculine), 2490-2495; viii, 
2013 ff., 2355 ff., 2880. Note also Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid, \l. 218 ff. 

2 Confessio Amantis,i, 42-45. 

3 See his Complaint of the Black Knight (Skeat, Chaucerian and other 
Pieces, pp. 258-259), ll. 420 ff., especially 453, 468 ff. 

4 Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 2543 ff. Compare, too, the description of the 
house of Venus in Claudian’s De Nuptiis Honorii et Mariae, \l. 49 ff., 86 ff., 
with that of Fortune; and see below, pp. 123 f. 


98 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


This identification of the two figures of Fortune and Love 
only means that they had very much in common,’ and 
that in one aspect Fortune was certainly regarded as con- 
cerned with the affairs of love. 


* For the association of Love and Fortune in Elizabethan times, see Tur- 
bervile’s poem on “A Controversie of a conquest in Love twixt Fortune 
and Venus” (Epitaphes, Epigrams, etc., 1567, ed. J. P. Collier, pp. 110 f.), 
and a comedy on “‘The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune,” 1589 (Dods- 
ley-Hazlitt, Old English Plays, 1874, vol. V1), both noted by J. H. Hanford in 
his article in the Kittredge anniversary volume, p. 449. See also Grimm, 
Deutsche Mythologie, 111, 264, §728: ‘Eine sage von frau Fortuna, die eine art 
Venus ist, steht in den altd, bl. I, 297.” For the wheel of Venus, see also 
Froissart, Zuores, I, 59 (the wheels of Li Orloge Amoureus). Here the wheels 
are of a significance entirely different from that of the wheel of Fortune. They 
moderate each other: the Wheel of Desire is moderated by the Wheel of Tem- 
perance, and so on. See also Fortune’s chain and that of Venus. See Chau- 
cer’s Frankeleyn’s Tale, \l. 1355-1358. Cf. Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, 
x, 3: ““Omnes cum fortuna copulati sumus; aliorum aurea catena est, aliorum 
laxa, aliorum arta et sordida. Sed quid refert? eadem custodia uniuersos 
circumdedit alligatique sunt etiam qui alligauerunt, nisi forte tu leuiorem 
in sinistra catenam putas.” Also cf. Fregoso, Dialogo di Fortuna, v (sig. A 
BV). 

Che uno ordine infinito de le cose 
Concathenato la Fortuna sia 
Pieno d’hore infelice, & perigliose.* 


Lydgate, Troy Book, 11, 5601 f., speaks of the chain of Venus. Cf. Jupiter’s 
chain, Lydgate’s “‘balade” to the Duchess of Gloucester, Anglia, XXVII, 
388; and Satan’s chain in Chaucer’s Envoy to Bukton, \l. 9-14. 

See the attribution of Fortune’s characteristics to an amie, in Guillaume 
de Machaut’s Livre du Voir-Dit, pp. 355 f., “You are changeable, unsteady, 
you have a double face, happy and weeping,” etc.; cf. Poliziano, Le Stanze, 
etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, pp. 85-86 (La Giostra, ii, sts. 34-35). For the relation 
of the planet Venus to the seven ages and to the wheel of Fortune, see Boll’s 
Lebensalter, pp. 120 ff. See Cousin’s drawing, Livre de Fortune, pl. 67 (For- 
tune leading Amour); and Ripa’s description of “Fortuna gioueuole ad 
Amore” (Iconologia, p. 170), “Donna la quale con la mano destra tiene il 
cornucopia, et la sinistra sara posata sopra al capo di vn Cupido, che le 
scherzi d’ intorno alla veste.” 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 99 


(2) FortTuNA THE GUIDE 


The theme of “Fortune’s course,” mentioned in the 
preceding chapter,’ suggests that to attain any gift of 
Fortune we must follow her though she flee. The same 
idea is found in the conception of Fortune as leading 
mankind on a way of her own choosing, and so giving men 
the various adventures they experience. Fortune, and 
not Reason, thus becomes the guide of life. It is pre- 
sumed that her course will not be direct or easy to travel. 
Sections of the journey, as it were, are found in the vari- 
ous slight allusions to her in the process of so conducting 
affairs that man gets into certain pleasant or unpleasant 
situations. There are many such references, in which she 
is responsible in one way or another for bringing man 
into some particular place or set of circumstances.? A 
man who 1s walking comes into a wood by chance, or he 
is lost, or somehow the direction of his steps is taken out 
of his own hands. 


* Page 80, above. 

2 See Dante, Inferno, xiii, 97 ff. (“la dove fortuna 1a balestra’’); xxx, 
146 ff.; xxxii, 76; Boccaccio, Fiammetta, i, iv, vi (Opere, VI, 4, 8, 68, 141); 
also Filocopo, iii (idid., VII, 303), v (VIII, 241); and De Casibus, p. 92 (° Tan- 
dem urgente in eius exitium fortuna uires’’); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), 
I, 18 (son. xvi); Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, p. 86 (Za 
Giostra, ii, st. 35); La Compagnia del Mantellaccio, p. 42 (appended to Bur- 
chiello’s Sonetti); Frezzi, Quadriregio, I, 17 (lib. i, cap. iv), ll. 1 ff., the suf- 
ferer is lost; De Jennaro, Canzoniére, p. 324, no. 78; Pulci, Morgante Mag- 
giore, ii, 49; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xvii, 6; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 
XXIII, xxii; XLVI, Ixxi; Philippe de Beaumanoir, La Manekine, ll. 5496, 
5513-5516 (Ceuores, I, 170); Jean le Seneschal, Les Cent Ballades, p. 90, ll. 
24 ff.; Chaucer, Somnour’s Tale, D. 2019 ff. (story of two knights’ going forth; 
by fortune’s will only one returns); Gower, Confessio Amantis, 1, 1477-1478; 
Lydgate, Troy Book, 1, 3733 ff.; 1i, 2235 (“And to what fyn Fortune wil hem 
lede”’), 5256 f.; Alex. Montgomerie, Poems, 1887, p. 213, ll. 18-19. 


100 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


But Fortune does more than this. The writers refer 
quite definitely to her function as a guide. We read: 


Et uaga sunt mentis dubiae uestigia, tanquam 
Coeci palpantis. Quae uel qualis sit uia, cuius 
Est oculus baculus, & dux fortuna.! 


Fortuna “guida,” “ha condutto,” “mena,” “‘demainne,” 
or “leads.”’? She is often found guiding one across the 
sea, and this particular task of hers? leads us to the study 
of the next cult. 


* Leyser, Historia Poetarum, p. 953. 

2 Dante, Inferno, xv, 46 f.; Boccaccio, Filocopo, v (Opere, VIII, 332, “ha 
portati ad essere in casa di’’); also Ninfale Fiesolano, 1, xxxiv (ibid., XVII, 
14), and Donne Famose, p. 392, cap. cili; Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I?, 829, I, 
463; also Africa, i, 286-287; Frezzi, Quadriregio, 1, 49 (“condutto”’); San- 
nazaro, Opere, p. 94; Giov. Fiorentino, J/ Pecorone, I, 208 (x, 1), 220 (xi, 1); 
Sercambi, Novelle, ed. D’Ancona, p. 103 (no. xiii); ed. Renier, pp. 262 (no. 74), 
370 (no. 101, ‘“‘m’ha condutto a doverla dare a uno ragazzo’’); Ferrario, 
Poesie Pastorali, pp. 12 (“Fortuna prenderem per guida e scorta”’), 184; 
Benivieni, Opere, p. 109%° (Bucolica, egl. 8); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, 
Xvili, 72; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xii, 60; II, viti, 16, 34; xviil, 36; xix, 
38; Alberti, Opere, ITI, 433 (“Cosi come la fortuna ti pigne cosi procedi”’); 
Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XVIII, lviii (“Fortuna il guida Per dargli onor che 
Dardinello uccida”); XXIII, cix; X XV, Ix (“Fortuna mi tird fuor del cam- 
mino”’); Trissino, Tutte le Opere, I, 314, col. 2 (Sofonisba); Benoit de Ste. 
Maure, Roman de Troie, IV, 235 (1. 27456), 314 (1. 28929, Ulysses); Bar- 
bazan, Fabliaux, I, 203, |. 1203; III, 311, 1. 480; G. de Machaut, Giuores, ed. 
Hoepffner, II, 386 (Dit de ) Alerion, \l. 4301 ff.); Froissart, Zéuores, II, 22, ll. 
715 f.; Deschamps, vores, V, 411, lL 23-24; Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I, 
114; II, 219 (“Quant assez m’aurez tort porté”); Eger and Grine, |. 1092; 
Gower, Confessio Amantis, v, 314 (cf. viii, 1320); Lydgate, 4/bon and Am- 
phabel, 11, $95, and Troy Book, 11, 3777; Metcalfe, Legends of the Saints, 1, 269 
(xvi, Magdalena, |. 454). Herzhoff (Personif. lebl. Dinge, etc., pp. 11 f.) finds 
in his investigations that Aventure is most often connected with “amener,” 
“mener,” etc.: see his references. For Fortuna causing return, see Boc- 
caccio, Fiammetta, vii (Opere, VI, 171 f.); Masuccio, I/ Novellino, p. 410; 
and Cousin’s drawing, “Fortuna Redux,” Livre de Fortune, pl. 143. 

3 Boccaccio, Decameron, V, i (Opere, III, 26; also Teseide, 1, 12 (ibid., IX, 
13), and iv, 52-53 (IX, 136-137, “ella mi ha condotto a cotal porto”); 


Ui 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS IOI 


(3) ForTuNE OF THE SEA 


Dictys Cretensis, describing the wanderings of Ulysses, 
who after all was chiefly a romantic adventurer, says, 
“Adpulsusque ad Lotophagos atque aduersa usus fortuna 
deuenerit in Siciliam.” * The sea-figure, comparing life to 
a sea and one’s career to a vessel of which Fortune is in 
charge, is used with such great frequency in discussions of 
the work of Fortuna that it becomes a theme of unusual 
importance. In Boethius, for example, we find the fol- 
lowing statements: 


Si uentis uela committeres, non quo uoluntas peteret, sed quo 
flatus impellerent, promoueres.... Fortunae te regendum dedisti, 
dominae moribus oportet obtemperes.? 

Nondum est ad unum omnes exosa fortuna nec tibi nimium ualida 
tempestas incubuit, quando tenaces haerent ancorae quae nec 
praesentis solamen nec futuri spem temporis abesse patiantur.3 


Life is, therefore, a sea of trouble stirred up by Fortuna, 
and with our light skiff we venture on its waves.‘ 


Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXX, xv; Bembo, Opere, 1, 65 (Degli Asolani, 
lib. 1). 

t Belli Troiani, VI, v, 31-32. 

2 Cons. Philos., II, pr. i, 52-56. Cf. Dinaux, Trouvéres, IV, 625; G. de 
Machaut, Remede de Fortune, \l. 2577 ff. 

3 Cons. Philos., I, pr. iv, 28-31. See also pr. ii, 22 ff. (“nunc ... nunc”), 
and met. ii, 1 f., and iil, 9 ff. 

4 Hildebert de Lavardin, De Exsilio Suo (Migne, vol. CLXXI, col. 1419, 
“Inde ratem scando, uitam committo procellis’””); Henricus Septimellensis, 
Trattato, 1730, p. 7 (“Obruor Oceano, sauisque reuerberor undis,”’ etc.); 
Gedicht auf die Zerstoriing Mailands, \\. 26 ff.; Dante, I/ Convivio, I, 1i1, 30 ff. 
(‘quasi mendicando ... Veramente io sono stato legno senza vela,” etc.); 
Le Régne de Fortune, in Montaiglon’s Recueil de Poésies Frangoises, X, 79; G. 
de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 497-498, ll. 21 ff.; Christine de 
Pisan, Quores, II, 64, ll. 486 ff.; James I, Kingis Quair, st. 15, ll. 3-4 (“Ryght 
as the schip that sailith stereles,” etc.); Dunbar, Quhome to sall I Complene my 
Wo, \. 59 (Poems, II, 102, “Quhair fals behechtis as wind hyne wavis”’); Boc- 


102 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


As in the case of Fortuna the Guide the goddess enjoys 
leading people about, so here she takes a position at the 
helm and guides the ship. She turns it, conducts it 
through the storm, and brings it into a good or a bad 
port.’ 

Sometimes her method of guiding the ship is by con- 
trolling the winds: one abandons the sails of one’s ship to 
Fortuna,? and she directs them. Fortune is called “ven- 


caccio, Filocopo, v (Opere, VIII, 274-275); Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), 
I, 10 (son. viii, “Fortuna, ed Amor, che sta al temone”’); Bembo, Opere, I, 
73 £. (Degli Asolani, lib. 1); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, II, 230 (““L’eaue de 
Pleurs, de Joye ou de Douleur”’). 

t Dante, Paradiso, xxvii, 145 ff. (“Le poppe volgera wu’ son le prore”’); 
Petrarch, Rime, ed. Mestica, p. 349 (son. ccxv); Frezzi, Quadriregio, 1, 280, 
ll. 5 ff. (“tra la gran tempesta. . . . Conduce la sua barca con salute”); 
Masuccio, [/ Novellino, pp. 257 (“ai loro moreschi liti”), 423 (“da... for- 
tuna...al porto... accompagnato”’); Alberti, Opere, V, 332 (Lettere, “a 
questo porto”); Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VIII, lix (“‘al lito infausto”); XX, 
xlviii (“al nostro lito”); XXXVI, lxi (“che ’1 legno ai liti inabitati’””); Wace, 
Roman de Rou, I, 27, ll. 476-477 (‘al port de Lune’’); Benoit de Ste. Maure, 
Roman de Troie, IV, 285, ll. 28412 ff. (Menelaus arrives at Crete); Philippe 
de Beaumanoir, La Manekine, ll. 1072 ff., cf. 1084 ff., 5495 ff. (CGuores, I, 36, 
170); Christine de Pisan, Zuvres, I, 182 (Ixii, 8 ff.); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 
I, 130 (“a douloureux port”’); II, 222 (“venir 4 bon port”); Gower, Con- 
fessio Amantis, vill, 1320 (ship is led by Fortune); Dunbar, Lucina Schyn- 
nyng in Silence of the Nicht, \l. 14 f. (Poems, I, 149, ““Quhilk every worldly 
thing dois turne and steir”’); Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, \I.1044 (Aeneas 
and Dido); Lydgate, Troy Book, 11, 3392-3393 (“And of fortune in her 
[their] cours Pei mette A Grekysche schip”). 

2 Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, 11, 318 (“Sostenitor delle 
vele gonfiate . . . Eolo non pué le mie vele impedire,” etc.); Boiardo, Orlando 
Innamorato, Il, i, 7 (“a fortuna le vele abbandona”’). 

3 Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXII, x (“dove fortuna spinge”); David 
Lindsay, Satyre of the thrie Estaits, \l. 582-583 (‘Fortune turnit on thame hir 
saill”); Paulo Maccio, Emblemata, pp. 172-173 (emblem xlii, verse and 
inscription, “Quo fortuna uocat, si nauita uela retorquet,” ““Volentes ducunt 
fata, nolentes trahunt”’; with picture of a ship on the sea). 


PLATE 4 


BOETHIUS AND FORTUNE 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 103 


tosa.”’ * In the figure of the type, as we have seen,’ For- 
tune is herself blown by the winds. In the symbolic figure 
she and the winds are apparently in close conspiracy with 
each other — both are mentioned as if concerned with the 


same work: 
E guidato dai venti, 
E la fortuna che volge in sua via.3 


And then we read of the actual ‘‘winds of Fortune”’ 
which she sends to the ship; 


Oimé! Fortuna, non mi stare addosso; 
Abbia pieta di me, che pid non posso. 
Tempera omai i tuoi venti crudeli, 
E non isconquassar piu la mia barca.‘ 


In control of the winds, she sends mist and fog. As early 
as the tenth century Gerbert of Aurillac complains, “Sed 


~ R. Holkot, Opus super Sapientiam Salomonis, \ectio cviii (“‘uideas illam 

uentosam fluentem,” quoting Boethius, II, pr. viii); Gower, Mirour de ?]Omme, 
ll, 22106-22110, 

Ore es tout coye au sigle et nage, 

Menable et du paisible port; 

Ore es ventouse, plein du rage, 

Des haltes ondes tant salvage, 

Que l’en ne puet nager au port. 


2 See p. 37, above. 

3 Poesie Ital. Ined., 1,55. See also Cino da Pistoia, Poesie (1826), p. 145 
(son. lxxxi); Burchiello, Sonetti, p. 110 (“la mia vela sventola’’); Sannazaro, 
Opere, p. 126 (Arcadia), 

Ma prega tu che i venti non tel guastino... 
Voto fo io, se tu, Fortuna, ajutici, etc.; 


Giov. Fiorentino, J/ Pecorone, 1, 273 f. (xiv, 2); Pico della Mirandola, Opera, 
I, 397, xii (In Astrologiam, lib. vi, cap. ii, ““Fortunamue petat pelago uen- 
tosque sequatur’’); the anonymous Débat de Lomme Mondain et du Religieux 
(Pierre Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles, p. 310); Lydgate, Troy Book, i, 1235 f. 
(cf. 1241, Neptunus); v, 628 ff.; Alain Chartier, Zuvres, p. 394. 

4 Giov. Fiorentino, J/ Pecorone, II, 37 (xvi, 2). See Boccaccio, De Casibus, 
p. 214 (“ut aut omnem fortune spirantis auram’”’), and poem opposite the 


104 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


inuoluit mundum caeca fortuna, quae premit caligine, an 
praecipitet, an dirigat me modo tendentem hac, modo 
illac.”’* Fortune brings dark clouds, rain, “cludy stor- 
mis,” and tempests.? Storms, then, whether of wind or 
rain or clouds, are sent on occasion by the fickle goddess, 
whom Lydgate calls the “stormy quene”;% and she 
brings the unhappy vessel on a rock.‘ 


index, by Pontano (“fortune quatitur procellis”); Benoit de Ste. Maure, 
Roman de Troie, I, 166, |. 3282 (“bon vent li a doné Fortune”’); Charles d’ 
Orléans, Poésies, II, 164, 


En la forest de Longue Attente, 
Par vent de Fortune Dolente, 
Tant y voy abatu de bois 


(quoted by Raynaud, Rondeaux, p. 42, xlvii; for the first line, cf. René d’ 
Anjou, uvres Completes, III, 9, 1.11). See Christine de Pisan, Quvres, I, 
182 (Ixii, 9); cf. Gower, Mirour de ’Omme, |. 22096 (“‘ Plus que ly ventz perest 
changable”), and Confessio Amantis, v, 7556 (“such a wynd fortune hem 
sente”’), vili, 600 ff. (at line 623 Neptune appears in power). Contrast Lyd- 
gate, Zroy Book, v, 1 ff., where Fortune is in opposition to Juno, Eolus, and 
Neptune, who unite to make the sea calm. Fortune puts discord among the 
Greeks themselves. 

t Epistle xlvi (Migne, vol. CK XXIX, col. 215). 

2 Ariosto, I Cingue Canti, III, lvi (fortune — storm?); see G. de Ma- 
chaut’s figure in his Dit de ? Alerion, ll. 1749 ff. (Geuores, ed. Hoepffner, I, 
300); Gareth, Rime, II, 45 (son. xxxvi); Sibbald, Chronicle, II, §5, xxii 
(“Thoucht scho with cludy stormis me assail”’). 

3 Troy Book, v, 635; cf. ii, 3240 (““O stormy Fortune”). For the associa- 
tion of Fortuna with storms, see Lorenzo de’ Medici, Opere (1825), I, 39, 
canz. ii; Bembo, Rime, p. 88, son. xcvii; Froissart, Mé/iador, II, 72, ll. 11790 ff. 
(after the storm; cf. 1. 11846); Christine de Pisan, Geuvores, I, 4 (iti, 13 f., 
“Fist en la mer trop tempesteux orage”’); Gower, Vox Clamantis, ii, 132 
(“uelut unda maris sic uenis atque redis” — cf. Boethius, Cons. Philos., 
I, met. v, 45 ff.), 136 (“Turbinis et uento te facis esse parem”). See Alberti, 
Opere, III, 167 (“peritogli il naviglio”); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore. xxi, 165 
(“ed or fortuna il tuo legno travaglia”); Sir William Mure, Works, 1, 63 
(Dido and Aeneas, 1,67, ‘“‘Learne, noble warriours! Fortunes storme to beir”’); 
Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, ll. 2g—30 (Surety pitches her tent in poor estate 
to cover her from the “storm of descendyng”’). Cf. the work of the Fata 
Morgana, Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, II, viii, 61. 

4 See De Guilleville’s Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges, fol. Ixvii¥°, which 


( 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 105 


So it is that we hear of the “sea of Fortune,’’! and even 
find it described for us: 


Par long temps j’ay nagié en l’onde 
De la cruelle mer parfonde 

De Fortune, qui par son sort 

M’a mené jusques a ung port 

Le plus maudit de tout le monde. 


Ung lac y a sans point de bonde, 

Qui d’eaue de pleurs tant fort radonde 
C’on n’y trouve ne fons ne bort: 

Par long temps [j’ay nagié en l’onde 
De la cruelle mer parfonde]. 


This is only one of the various ways in which Fortune be- 
comes connected with matters of the sea.3 It is hardly 
strange, then, that the man of the Middle Ages who pur- 
poses a voyage wonders “If that fortuna with him 
stonde.””’ 4 


makes Fortune’s wheel, standing in the middle of the sea, a “‘caribdis.” Cf. 
Lydgate, Minor Poems, ed. MacCracken, I, 69, Il. 293-295: 

From perellys passed with our present passage, 

Future swolwys of fortunys floodys, 

Dredfull Caribdys, Syrenes mortal rage. 
See Deschamps, Gores, VI, 71, ll. 19 ff., and notice the phrase “fortune de 
mer” in the refrain. Cf. Christine de Pisan, Guores, I, 182 (Ixii, 8 ff.); 
Masuccio, J/ Novellino, p. 448 (“‘naufragio che da la invida fortuna lor era 
apparecchiato”). 

t Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, 1, 43. 

2 Raynaud, Rondeaux, p. 25 (xxviii). 

3 Note also Gerbert of Aurillac, epist. xlv (Migne, vol. CX X XIX, col. 214) 
“uelut hoc turbulento tempore motum fortune refregimus”; Pulci, Mor- 
gante Maggiore, xx, 45, 

Ma la fortuna ch’ é troppo invidiosa, 
Fece che mentre che Morgante mena 
A salvamento il legno ed ogni cosa, 
Subito si scoperse una balena, 
E viene verso la nave furiosa, etc. 


4 Gower, Confessio Amanitis, i, 2529. 


106 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Torquato Tasso, in his Gerusalemme Liberata, describes a 


picciola nave, e in poppa, quella, 


Che guidar gli dovea, fatal donzella. 


IV 


Crinita fronte ella dimostra, e ciglia 
Cortesi e favorevoli e tranquille: 
E nel sembiante agli angioli somiglia; 
Tanta luce ivi par ch’arda e sfaville. 
La sua gonna or azzurra, ed or vermiglia 
Diresti; e si colora in guise mille; 
Si ch’ uom sempre diversa a sé la vede, . 
Onantunque volte a rieuardarla riede 


VI 


Entrate, dice, o fortunati, in questa 
Nave, ond’ io l’Ocean secura varco, 
Cui destro é ciascun vento, ogni tempesta 
Tranquilla, e lieve ogni gravoso incarco. 
Per ministra e per duce or mi v’ appresta 
I] mio signor, del favor suo non parco. 
Cosi parlo la donna.* 


The Christian Fortuna makes a gracious guide on the sea. 
Thus Fortuna controls affairs of the sea,” and it is she 


* Gerusalemme Liberata, XV, iii-vi (Opere, XXVI, 4 ff.). The omitted 
stanza is on the change of her colors, like the changing lights in the down of a 
dove. On page 5 a note to stanza 3 says, “Anche il Tasso in una delle Let- 
tere inedite dichiara esser questa la Fortuna.” 

2 For the idea in art, see Fortuna with a sail in the Mirrour of Matestie, pl. 
23 (after p. 63; note the inscription); Cousin, Livre de Fortune, plates 1 (ship 
in the background), 63 (“Fortune amenantla Tempéte”), and cf. plates 49, 61, 
143 (anchor), 157, 161; Fregoso, Dialogo di Fortuna, title-page (Fortune walk- 
ing on the water with sail blown by the wind). Ripa (Jconologia, p. 170) thus 
describes “‘Fortuna Infelice”’: “‘Donna sopra vna naue senza timone, et con 
l’albero, et la vela rotti dal vento. La naue é la vita nostra mortale, la quale 
ogn’ huomo cerca di condurre a qualche porto tranquillo di riposo; la vela, e 
lValbero spezzato, et gl’altri arnesi rotti, mostrano la priuatione della quiete, 
essendo la mala fortuna vn successo infelice, fuor dell’ intedimento di colui che 
opera per elettione.”” See also Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symbols xxiii 
(Fortuna with sail, and rudder?), xiii (two figures with rudders), xcvii. 


s 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 107 


who sends the calm or the storm. In none of the passages 
cited is there a confusion of the goddess with the Italian 
abstract “fortuna,” the literal meaning of which is 
“storm’’; but may it not be possible that that Italian 
word of special meaning was derived from the abstraction 
“fortuna” which includes the gifts of our “fortune of the 
sea’’?* At any rate, it 1s quite clear that we are justified in 
considering the goddess as much concerned with me- 
diaeval ventures on the ocean. She it was whom the sailor 
thought of at the beginning of his great voyages of traffic 
and discovery.? 


(4) THE Fortune or ComBaTt 


Pico della Mirandola, in his philosophic mood, speaks 
of “fortuna quae in rebus bellicis plurimum dominatur.”’ 5 
To this comment Jean de Meun adds a cynical touch: 
“Bataille, en coi fortuna seult plus avoir de pooir que 
vertus.”’ 4 The author of the Complaynt of Scotlande, who 


* Du Cange’s earliest reference to the “fortuna” which means storm is in 
a document of 1242 (‘‘Bartholom. Scribae Annal. Genuenses ad ann. 1242”’). 
There I find the expression ambiguous, as meaning possibly either the god- 
dess or the storm: “Continuo ualida Fortuna maris; et uenti, et pluuiae 
regnare,’ etc. Du Cange also cites ‘““Bernhardus de Breydenbach, Itiner. 
Hierosol., pag. 14,” as saying, “Nisi forsitan tempestas maris, Fortuna appel- 
lata, id faciendum persuaderet.”” But this document is of the late fifteenth 
century. 

2 The shifting from a figurative to a literal “sea” and back again in these 
passages need not cause worry. The figurative could not have arisen without 
the literal idea. The “‘sea of life” and its “storms” came, of course, from 
actual experience of the sea and its dangers. The goddess, guiding the vessel 
in the sea of life, must have come from the idea of the goddess guiding the 
real vessel on the sea. At any rate, see the non-figurative uses above, p. 102, 
n. 1; Masuccio, [/ Novellino, p. 257; Benoit de Ste. Maure, Roman de Troie, 
IV, 285, ll. 28412 ff.; Gower, Confessio Amantis, viii, 1320; Lydgate, Troy 
Book, 11, 3392 f., etc.; Dictys Cretensis, Be/li Troiani, VI, v (quoted above, 
p. 101). 3 Opera, I, 350 (In Astrologiam, lib. iii, cap. xxvii). 

4 TL Art de Chevalerie, p. 131. 


108 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


elsewhere in his work denies Fortune any reality, tells us 
that “‘battellis consistis vndir the gouernance of fortune, 
ande nocht in the ingyne of men.”* Thus Fortuna 
threatens to supplant even Mars and Bellona.? She not 
only wages her own private war with man, but she sits in 
judgment on the battles of men amongst themselves. 
Fortune brings enemies together to provoke a fight. 
She shows herself completely unfavorable, and sometimes 
causes the downfall of one particular side;‘4 but she is 


* Page 15, 1. 24. With these references cf. Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, II, 
645 f. (“fortuna possente ... in ogni cosa, ma in battaglia potentissima”); 
Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xvi, 1 (‘‘pit si mostra a caso de la guerra”’); 
Guicciardini, Opere Ined., 1, 391 (“‘sottoposte alla potesta della fortuna’”’), 
with examples of victims in war. 

2 See Guido Cavalcanti, in Poeti del Primo Secolo, 11, 320 (“non potrebbe 
far ch’ io Non signoreggi tutto ’] regno mio”); Alberti, Opere, I, 202 (“Se cosi 
s’afferma, la Fortuna molto valere ove Marte s’impacci”). Cf. Gower, Con- 

fessio Amantis, vii, 892 (Mars stands ‘“‘upon the fortune of batailes”); Lyd- 

gate, Siege of Thebes, ll. 4645 ff. (Fortune and Bellona work together), and 
Troy Book, iii, 200 ff. See Gesta di Federico, |. 1181 (“Nam Fortuna fauet, 
gladios Deus ipse ministrat””); contrast Gower, Vox Clamanitis, 111, 403 ff. (“In 
cleri bellis scit magis ipse deus”’). 


3 Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I', 219; Gower, Confessio Amantis, ii, 2596 ff.; 


Lydgate, Serpent of Division, p. 51, ll. 16-17 (“pat he of aventure mette with 
pis manly man Tullius,” etc.). 

4 Gesta di Federico, \l. 1073 f.; Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I, 211; Boc- 
caccio, Filocopo, i (Opere, VII, 64), and De Casibus, p. 122; Frezzi, Quadri- 
regio, I, 284, ll. 29-30 (“contra lei Non é fortezza, o senno, che vi vaglia”’); 
Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, III, 1, 48; Medin, Lamenti, p. 43, ll. 13 fF; 
Machiavelli, De’ Discorsi, II, xvi (Opere, IV, 287); Jean Priorat, Li Abrejance 
de l’Ordre de Chevalerie, p. 53, ll. 1630 ff.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chich- 
maref, II, 488, ll. 56 f.; Froissart, Méliador, II, 134, ll. 13918 f.; III, 176, Il. 
27758 f.; Deschamps, Cevores, V, 371 (mlxxiii); VII, 138, 1. 21; Le Petit Trait- 
tiet (Pierre Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles, p. 233); Alain Chartier, Zuores, 
pp. 364 (“‘ puis luy tourna fortune le doz”), 623 (“ Fortune a tantost compassé 
Ung mal tout nouvel”), 641; Chaucer, Legend of Good Women, |. 589 (‘as 
Fortune him oghte a shame,” — of Mark Antony); Gower, Mirour de l’Omme, 
Il. 22079-22080, and Confessio Amantis, 11, 1790-1792; Lydgate, Troy Book, 


a 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 10g 


famous for changing sides and may return to us. She 
is often in doubt herself, but she may again show her 
smiling face to our hosts;* she aids us, and increases 
our expectations;? she bestows victory,’ and she brings 


Ili, 2529-2532; iv, 857, 1076 ff., 1088 ff.; v, 417 ff.; also Siege of Thebes, |. 
4250 (“And thus fortuné hath on Grekys frownyd”’), and Albon and Am- 
phabel, 111, 494; Barbour, The Bruce, vii, 298-299 (“‘Fortoun has travalit us 
this day”); The Complaynt of Scotlande, p. 15, ll. 15 f. (Fortune adverse to 
Hannibal). 

t Gesta di Federico, \l. 1699 (‘Et rediens Fortuna iuuat uiresque minis- 
trat’’), 1703 (“Fortunam transisse uidens’’), 2491 f. (“fortuna fauorem Sub- 
traxit”); Dante, De Monarchia, Il, xi, 45 (“‘fere Fortunam — ut dicam — 
incoepti poenituit”); Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I', 319 (‘‘il bollore delle 
varie cose della fortuna ... non pare durare in alcuna parte”); II, 357, 643 
(“la fortuna parea deliberare’’); also Africa, vii, 1034 (“Nutabat fortuna 
die”), cf. v, 211 ff.; Boccaccio, Donne Famose, p. 261 (cap. Ixxviii, “stando 
per lungo spazio in dubbio’’); also De Casibus, pp. 94 (“in decliuum fortunam 
labentem sentiret”), 109 (“paululum agitare uisa est”), 164 (“seque titu- 
bantem monstrauit, quasi dubia’); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxiv, 134; 
Trissino, Tutte le Opere, 1, 303, col. 2 (Sofonisba, “gli arrise la fortuna’’); 
Guicciardini, Opere Ined., 1, 391; Gower, Balades, xx, 2 (Works, I, 354, peace 
comes after war); also Cronica Tripertita, i11, 189 ff. (““Omnes sorte pari 
dubitant qua parte iuuari. Tunc fortuna rotam diuertit,” etc.); Lydgate, 
Troy Book, ii, 6675-6676 (“Fortune can transmewe Hir gery cours’’), 8561— 
8562 (“For as hir whele went aboute rounde, Rizt so Pat day pei wan and 
lost her grounde”); iii, 2722 (‘List Fortune a-wronge hir face wripe”’), 
3602 ff.; iv, 1747 ff., 3271 ff. (“sodeyn torn of hir false visage”’). 

2 Petrarch, Vite d. Uomini, I', 309 (“suole aumentare le piccole spe- 
ranze”’); II, 645 f.; also Africa, vi, 347 (““spem fortuna ferat”); Boccaccio, 
Filocopo, i (Opere, VII, 37, 53); Teseide, v, 54 (ébid., IX, 168, “Renderd 
grazie alla fortuna mia”); Ameto (ibid., XV, 81); also Donne Famose, p. 29 
(cap. xi), and De Casibus, pp. 80, 140; Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, Il, 
188, ll. 641-642; Jean Priorat, Li Abrejance de l’Ordre de Chevalerie, p. 353, 
ll. 11230 ff. (cf. Jean de Meun, L’ Art de Chevalerie, p. 175); Chaucer, Knight’s 
Tale, A. 1860 ff.; Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, 1. 4271; also Albon and Amphabel, 
li, 809-810; and Troy Book, iii, 1312 f., 2651 f., 2832 f., 3185 f. 

3 Gesta di Federico, ll. 1206 f. (“‘palmam Perdere, quam tandem dederat 
Fortuna secunda”’); Petrarch, Africa, ii, 188 f.; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 
XXIV, xxvi; Chaucer, Knight's Tale, A. 915 f.; Gower, Mirour de ’Omme, 
ll. 17092 f., 22024 ff., 22048-22050; Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 1991; Gregory 


IIO THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


peace.t In these ways Fortune lives up to her reputation 
of having particular power in warfare and combat.? 


(5) THe Fortune or Fame 


Since Fortune sends victory in warfare to one side or 
the other, since her gifts include dignities most con- 
spicuously, and since on her depends success in various 
kinds of achievements, she is therefore much concerned 
with the bestowal of fame. She and Fame are at all times 
closely associated, but sometimes she appears actually 
doing the work of Fame. 


Smith, Specimens of Middle Scots, p. 74 (The Portous of Nobleness). See 
drawing, Scarlattini, Homo Symbolicus, II, 54 (“quae dextera sua militem 
coronet ... fortunam et uictoriam imperatoris designant”’); cf. Ritson, 4n- 
cient English Metrical Romances, IX], 148, ll. 257-258, ; 


I pray to god and our lady, 
Sende you the whele of vyctory. 


Cf. Mead’s note on this line in his edition of the Sguyr of Lowe Degre, Albion 
Series, Boston, 1904, p. 61, n. 258. 

See Ripa, Iconologia, p. 171: “Donna che con la destra mano tiene vn cornu- 
copia, et vn ramo d’alloro, con la sinistra mano s’appoggia ad vn timone; 
significando, ch’ella fa trionfare chiunque vuole, et la dimostratione di ci6 si 
rappresenta con il ramo dell’ alloro.”’ See, too, the frontispiece to W. V. 
Cooper’s translation of Boethius (Dent ed.) and his note at p. 169. 

* Deschamps, Cuwores, 1, 162 (Ixvi); Gower, Confessio Amantis, iii, 1840—- 
1841. 

2 See the wheel come full circle, Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, II, 347, ll. 
1421 ff. Cf. Gower, Confessio Amantis, vil, 3374-3375; also his poem Jn 
Praise of Peace, \\. 115-116 (Works, III, 484); and see the emblem of the 
Northumbrian in his Cronica Tripertita, i, 55 f. (ibid., IV, 315). 

3 See Poesies Ital. Ined., 1V, 285; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXXIV, lxxiv, 
and see XXII, xciii (“la vaga Fama”); Chaucer, Hous of Fame, 111, 1547 
(Fortune is the sister of Fame), 1982 f. (Aventure is the “moder of ty- 
dinges”); Gower, O Deus Immense (Works, IV, 362-364), ll. 66-70, 

Fama ferens uerba que dulcia sunt et acerba. 
Fama cito crescit, subito tamen illa uanescit, 
Saltem fortuna stabilis quia non manet una: 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS Vit 


Boccaccio requests Fortuna that his book be not ob- 
scure among men: “Et quod obscurum praesentibus 
nomen meum est, tuo illustratum fulgore clarum apud 
posteros habeatur.” * In place of Fortune’s handmaids 
“Wealth” and “Honors,” whom Boethius notes,? Gower 
refers to her servants Renomée and Desfame, who fly 
faster than the swallow, bearing news of her court, to-day 
fair news, to-morrow ugly; each has a big horn suspended 
from her neck, and these horns they sometimes exchange.’ 
Chaucer, in the Hous of Fame, describes his figure of 
Fame with many of the expressions familiar in the tradi- 
tion of Fortuna and with much of her apparatus. He 
gives Fame two trumpets of good and evil rumor respec- 
tively. In translating De Casibus, Lydgate adds the 
figure of the two trumpets and the house of Fame, and 
attributes these to Fortune: 


Principio scire fortunam seu stabilire, 
Non est humanum super hoc quid ponere planum. 


Contrast Alex. Montgomerie, Poems, 1887, p. 97 (xvi; 5-6): 


In spyt of fortun, I shall flie with fame; 
Sho may my corps, bot not my curage kill. 


See Dante, Inferno, xv, 70 f.; Petrarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, II, 298 (son.. 
xiii); Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, II, xi, 35. In Frezzi’s Quadriregio, lib. 11, 
cap. x (I, 134, ll. 1 ff.), “la falsa Opinion” is described with an appearance 
very much like that of Fortune. See, e. g., in her speech: 


Io fo povero alcun nella ricchezza; 
E fo la poverta allegra tanto, 
Ch’ alcun la porta, e nulla n’ ha gravezza. 


See also Machiavelli, De’ Discorsi, lib. iii, cap. xxx (Opere, V, 128); cf. Gower, 
Conféssio Amantis, iv, 1763. 

«De Casibus, V1, 1, p. 147. 

2 Cons. Philos., XI, pr. 11, 16 ff. 

3 Mirour de l’Omme, passage concerning Fortune, beginning at line 
22081. 


112 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


In which processe thou dost gret diligence 

as they deserue to yeue them thanke or blame 
Settest vp one in royal excellence, 

within mine house called the house of fame 
the golden trumpet with blastes of good name, 
Enhaunceth one to ful hye parties 

where Jupiter sitteth among the heuenly skies. 


Another trumpet of sownes ful vengeable 
which bloweth vp at feastes funerall, 
Nothing bright, but of colour sable, 

Farre fro my fauour deadly and mortall, 
To plonge princes from their estate royal, 
whan I am wroth to make them loute lowe 
Than of malice I doe that trumpet blowe.* 


Pierre Michault gives two similar trumpets to Eur and 
Maleur.? 

Thus Fortune is never quite free from the charges of 
those who are discontented with their fame. As her gifts 
include glory, so we find her pretty much responsible for 
our reputation, good or bad. 


(6) PERSONAL ForTUNA 


The idea of having a peculiar cult of one’s own Fortuna 
seems to have been a favorite at all periods. I do not refer 
merely to what is likely to constitute our idea of one’s 
personal “fortune”’ in the abstract sense, but to the con- 
ception of a tutelary goddess who is particularly inter- 
ested in one, and who dispenses to one her bounties or 
withholds them. In the Morgante Maggiore we hear the 


* Fall of Princes, V1, i, stanzas 16-17 (1554 ed., fol. cxliii”® f.; 1558 ed., 
fol. cxxxiv’®). 

2 La Dance aux Aveugles, pp. 30 f. Eur stands on a high pillar, with a 
trumpet of silver; Maleur is ‘‘au plus bas du trosne,” holding an old worn- 
out wooden one mended with strings. 


RUAtees 


eebtienie tet 


SkORE 


ARBES 


FORTUNE AND SAPIENCE 


Pra 


* 
fa 
y 
* 


‘ 
, 
\ 
‘ 
‘ 
tt 
= 
Fi 
. ay 
; 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 113 


cry, _O mia fortuna, ove mi guidio meni?” * And in the 
Confessio Amantis we read: 


For whan mi fortune overcasteth 

Hire whiel and is to me so strange, 
And that I se sche wol noght change, 
Than caste I al the world aboute, etc.? 


The goddess referred to here is certainly personal.* Very 
possibly it was her vogue in this cult which spread the use 
of the abstract ‘“‘my fortune,” meaning ‘what my For- 
tune brings me.” 


(7) Fortuna PuBiica 


As the individual believed that a particular Fortune 
took his case into consideration, that a particular aspect 
of the goddess had influence over his life, so he held that a 
special aspect of the goddess held sway over the city and 
over the state. 

The Fortune of the city is certainly uppermost in the 
laments concerning the destruction of Milan.‘ Florence is 


t Pulci, canto xxvil, st. 188. 2 Book iii, ll. 1136-1139. 

3 See Lucan, Pharsalia, vii, 649; Poesie Ital. Ined., Ill, 19; Petrarch, 
Scritt. Ined., p. 312; also Rime, ed. Albertini, I, 323 (sest. viii), 341 (son. cc); 
ed. Mestica, p. 465 (canz. xxvi [xlv], 7-8); also Vite d. Uomini, I?, 831 (“sua 
malvagia fortuna”), and Africa, 1, 280; Boccaccio, Teseide, ili, 59-60 (Opere, 
IX, 110); also De Casibus, pp. 38, 83 (“mitiorem sibi quam caeteris retrolapsis 
fortunam existimans’’); Masuccio, J/ Novellino, pp. 280, 359; Sannazaro, 
Opere, p. 428 (Egloga); Gareth, Rime, II, 307 (Metamor., ii, 30); Alberti, 

Opere, III, 367, 374; Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, A. 2658 f. 
4 See Gedicht auf die Zerstirung Mailands and Gesta di Federico. Note in 
the first of these the lines (22 ff.): 


Nil mireris, homo, quia cuncta sub orbe iubentur 
Ordine fatorum tandem labefacta perire. 

Quicquid Theba fuit, quicquid Troiana iuuentus, 
Quicquid Roma potens, rota mendacissima strauit. 
Experienda fui fortune fraudibus iisdem. 


114 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


subject to Fortune’s sway; * so also are Rome ? and Syra- 
cuse.3 Troy is naturally the most familiar example of 


the goddess’s infidelity: 


E quando la fortuna volse in basso 
L’altezza de’ Troian che tutto ardiva, 
Si che insieme col regno il re fu casso, 


says Dante.t Thus she caused the greatest of all civic 
tragedies famous in the Middle Ages. 

Not only is Fortune the goddess of the city, but she is 
also the goddess of the people of the city, and, indeed, of 
the community. So she becomes the Fortune of the 
state, and we hear of “‘l’Italica fortuna” 7 and “la For- 
tuna degli Spagnuoli.”’ 


Non te pretereat populi fortuna potentis 
Publica, set sapiens talia fata caue, 


says Gower. 


* Fazio d. Uberti, Liriche, p. 135 (“Poi che fortuna nel viso ti ride”). 

2 Wace, Roman de Brut, \l. 3965 f.; Gower, Mirour de ’Omme, ll. 22158 
(Rome, a qui fuist mere Fortune et la droite emperere”’). 

3 Hoccleve, Regement of Princes, \l.3221 f. (“O citee! syn fortune was con- 
trarie To the in o part,” etc.). 

4 Inferno, xxx, 13-15 (note the mention of “‘altezza’’). 

5 See also references to Troy, Rome, Pisa, and many other Italian cities, 
in Medin’s Ballata della Fortuna (Il Propugnatore, new ser., II', 1889, pp. 
112 f.; pp. 108 f. show how this poem derives in other ways from Dante). 
See Carmina Burana, p. 45 (Ixxv, st. 3); Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 21 f.; 
Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione, xxxiv (Opere, XIV); Christine de Pisan, 
Cupres, II, 93, ll. 1482-1483; Alain Chartier, Zuores, p. 474 (Carthage and 
Troy). Cf. Cousin, pl. 153. 

® See Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, i, 138-140 (Fortune controls both 
Trojans and Greeks); Lydgate, Troy Book, iv, 5999 fF. 

7 Gareth, Rime, II, 236 (son. excix, “L’Italica fortuna ha privilegio Di 
volger la sua rota,” etc.); see also Guicciardini, Opere Ined., 1, 275, 288. 

8 Guicciardini, Opere Ined., I, 288. 

9 Vox Clamantis, vi, 623-624. 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS IIs 


(8) THe Fortune or TIME 


Fortune and Time are frequently named together and 
are apparently associated. Both give blows, become 
contrary, raise and ruin.? Fortune actually does the work 
of Time, as we see in such phrases as these: “se la fortuna 
fa passare il tempo di dieciotto anni”; +“ fortuna... Vol- 


gendo gli anni nel suo corso lieve’’; 4 “ella varia 1 on kts 
And lat Fortoun wirk furthe hir rage; 
Quhen that no rasoun may assuage, 


Quhill that hir glas be run and past.® 


Thus Fortuna has a glass, and in one drawing she has, 
like Father Time, a scythe.’ 

Controlling times and seasons in this way, Fortune may 
easily come to represent the goddess who is in control of 


t For Fortune as the goddess of Time, see Fowler, Roman Festivals, p. 172. 
Cf. Cousin’s plate 69 (“‘Fortune, Amor, Tempus, et Locus”; Fortune holds a 
clock in her hand). 

2 See Boccaccio, Fi/ostrato, IV, clxvi (Opere, XIII, 168, “tor gli anni”); 
Pontano, Carmina, I, 28 (Urania, i, 875-880; Fortune, Tempus, and Locus sit 
together in the council of the gods); Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, I, lvii; XXXIV, 
Ixxili (“per colpa di tempo o di Fortuna’’); G. de Machaut, Livre du Voir-Dit, 
p- 258 (“se Fortune ou li temps me sont contraire’’); Laing, Scottish Worthies, 
p- 142 (“Oft Tyme and Fortone ruin’d hes and rais’d’’); Pinkerton, Ancient 
Scotish Poems, I, 248, ll. 19-20. 

3 Sercambi, Novelle, ed. Renier, p. 303 (no. 86). 

4 Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XLU, lxxxiv. 

5 Machiavelli, De Discorsi, UI, = (Opere, V, 60). Cf. Baehrens, Poetae 
Latini Minores, \V, 148, no. 145 (‘‘Iniusto arbitrio tempora dividens”’). 

6 Dunbar, Meditatioun in Wyntir, \\l. 23-25 (Poems, II, 234). See also 
Benoit de Ste. Maure, Roman de Troie, Il, 107, 1. 10175; Charles d’ Orléans, 
Poésies, 11, 84 (xiv). 

7 Cousin, Livre de Fortune, pl. 179 (“Fortune tenant un Rasoir’’). See a 
drawing of Time on a wheel, holding a razor and labelled “Occasio,” in John 
Gau’s Richt Vay, p. 110. As to whether Cousin’s “‘Rasoir”’ is really a razor, 
and whether the figure in Gau’s book really represents Occasio, see discus- 
sion in the text above the drawing. See Cousin, pl. 17. 


116 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the opportune moment. Studies of Matzke and others 
have shown the growth of the confusion between Occasio 
and Fortuna, from the distichs of Cato according to Elie 
de Wincestre and Everard down through the works of 
Politian and Boiardo.t This mingling of ideas is repre- 
sented by the symbolic arrangement of the hair. Fortune, 
standing for Occasio, has a long forelock, while the back 
of her head is bald. The forelock one must seize in order 
to prevail upon the goddess before she slips away: 


Ha! Perceval, fortune est cauve 
Derriére et devant chevelue. 
Maudehait ait ki te salve 

Et ki nul bien te viut ne prie.? 


So much for the symbolic description. 


* It would be hard to add to the lists of passages collected by these schol- 
ars. See J. E. Matzke, Source of ““To Take Time by the Forelock,” Mod. Lang. 
Assoc., Pudl., VIII, 303 ff.; G. L. Kittredge on the same subject, Modern 
Language Notes, VIII, 230ff.,and IX, 95; also Karl Pietsch, idid., VIII, 235 ff. 
For the confusion with Death, notice Matzke above, p. 331; and see the con- 
fusion of Ventura with Occasio in Andrea Calmo’s Lettere, ed. Rossi, p. 450 
(“dietro chalua e-cchol cuffetto inn alto,” etc.). 

2 Perceval le Gallois, 11, 201-202, ll. 6024-6027. See Ariosto, Orlando © 
Furioso, XXX, xxv; XLVI, cxxxv. For pictures of this confusion and of 
Occasio herself with her forelock, see citations referred to in note 1 above; 
Green, Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers, pl. 12, opposite p. 265 (of 
1605); Alciati, Emblems, Paris, 1534, p. 20 (on a wheel; same in 1536 ed.), 
Augsburg, 1531, sig. A8 (on a ball); see the Dream of Poliphilus, ed. Appell, 
fig. 5 (at the top of a temple to the sun is a winged female figure, with cornu- 
copia and floating robes, and what seems to be a long forelock. ‘This figure 
is made so as to turn with the slightest breeze.”’) See Cousin, Livre de For- 
tune, pls. 15 (“L’Occasion de la Fortune’’), and 17 (“‘La Fortune ou le Dieu 
de l’Occasion”’); Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symb. li (a naked figure 
with a forelock, being lifted from the sea; note the inscription). See reference 
to these or similar figures in art by Simund de Freine, Roman de Philosophie, 
ll. 291 ff. (and observe Matzke’s note, p. Ixviii). Also cf. Bocchi’s symbol 
Ixxi. 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 117 


The spirit of this fusion of ideas is found in various 
passages in which we see Fortune doing the actual duties 
of Occasio and comporting herself in the manner of the 
lady of the unique coiffure. Sacchetti puts it thus: 
“Cosi fa tutto di la fortuna, che molte volte si mostra 
lieta, per vedere chi la sa pigliare; e molte volte chi meglio 
la sa pigliare, ne rimane in camicia ... chi non piglia il 
bene, quando la fortuna e’l tempo gnel concede, il pid 
delle volte, quando si ripensa, il rivorrebbe, e non lo ri- 
truova, se non aspettasse trentasei migliaja d’anni.” ? 
Thus Fortuna is goddess of time in general and deity of 
the lucky moment. 


(9) THe Fortune or DEATH 


Watriquet de Couvin says that Etirs and Fortune are 
afraid of only one conceivable creature on this earth, and 
that is Death.? But Death and Fortune at an early period 
are found codperating quite amicably, with little distinc- 
tion between their work. Sometimes a trio is formed in 


* Sacchetti, Novelle, III, 269. See also-Boccaccio, De Casibus, pp. 128 
(“seu sic disponente fortuna rerum oportunitatem secutus est’’), 225 (“dum 
expectaret, si forsan fortuna uiam aliquam aperiret ad eam oportunitatum 
omnium deuenit penuriam, ut,” etc.); Machiavelli, De’ Discorsi, lib. 11 (Opere, 
IV, 222); Christine de Pisan, Géuvres, III, 34, xlv; Chaucer, Troilus and 
Criseyde, 11, 281 ff.; Lydgate, Troy Book, iii, 2001 ff. (1. 2010, ““Anoper tyme 
he schal hir nat embrace”’). 

2 Dits, p. 398, ll. 47 fF. (Etirs); p. 80, ll. 77 ff. (Fortune). See, too, Lucan’s 
Pharsalia, vii, 818. Cf. Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xii, 58; Ariosto, Or- 
lando Furioso, III, xvi; Pierre Michault, Complainte (Dance aux Aveugles, p. 
128); Lydgate, Temple of Glas, App. I (continuation of MSS.), ll. 362 ff. 
(Schick’s ed., pp. 63 ff.; ll. 389 f., the only remedy against Fortune is death); 
Dunbar, Elegy, ll. 7 f. (Poems, II, 63, “Fortun, allace! now may thow weir the 
sabill”’). 

3 Dante, canzone x, |. 90; Petrarch, Rime, ed. Albertini, II, 155 (canz. 
viii, ““O saldo scudo,” etc.); Bernardo Pulci, in Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Poeste 


118 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the persons of Love, Death, and Fortune," and in Pierre 
Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles these three figures seem to 
be practically equated. 

Before the time of Watriquet de Couvin, indeed, For- 
tune had actually invaded the territory of Death and 
taken over his special prerogatives. In one of the minor 
Latin poets, probably of the period after the Golden Age 
but before the real opening of the Middle Ages, we read: 
“Haec [Fortuna] aufert tuuenes ac retinet senes.” ? 
Antithesis of a similar kind is found in a French dit of a 
much later period, which includes a description of a man 
who trusts in her, a “‘ Fols-s’i-fie”’: 


Et il cuide miex vivre en granz solempnitez, 
Lendemain est trovez murtris et soubitez.3 


(1801), II, 90; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, III, xxxviii (“Morte o Fortuna in- 
vidiosa e ria”); Alexandre de Bernay, Li Romans d’ Alixandre, ed. Michelant, 
pp. 540 f., ll. 33 ff.; Watriquet de Couvin, Dits, p. 270, Il. 1245 ff.; Froissart, 
Cuores, 1, 146, ll. 2003 ff.; Lydgate, Daunce of Machabree, p. 333, prol., st. 2; 
also Troy Book, iti, 4920 ff., 4971 ff.; and iv, 4271 ff. (all have “Antropos”’ 
and Fortune). See Chaucer’s Dream (or The Isle of Ladies), in Works, ed. 
Morris, V, 104, ll. 607 ff. (Death’s “subtill double face”); Weinhold, 
Ghicksrad und Lebensrad, pp. 21 ff. (the figure of Fortune becomes the figure 
of Death; on p. 24 see the inscription “nemini parco”). 

* Boccaccio, Filostrato, IV, cxx (Opere, XIII, 152); Benivieni, Opere, p. 
126%°; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poesie (1801), I, 67; Sannazaro, Opere, p. 388, son. 
lxi; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xxviii, 36; Christine de Pisan, Zuores, II, 
92, ll. 1445 ff. (the figures are not all named, but the ideas are associated). 
Cf. Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, iv, 1189 f.; Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, vii, 
72s 

Tu lasci me come amante fedele 
Perdere insieme e la vita e la dama, 
Che cosi vuol la fortuna crudele. 

2 Baehrens, Poetae Latini Minores, 1V, 148, no. 145. The author is As- 
clepiadius, of the fourth century probably, and one of the “twelve sages.” 
For his date, see idid., p. 42. 

3 Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., 1, 197. 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS I1g 


The tradition of Fortune’s causing death is widespread 
and continuous, and takes an important place in all me- 
diaeval elegiac poetry.’ In art, too, the goddess is closely 
associated with Death, or she herself by a turn of the 


* Guido delle Colonne, Hystoria Troiana, sig. a 6°°, col. 2 (“conuertat in 
cinerem,” etc.); sig. i 2, col. 1 (“‘pendeat mors et ita”); Cino da Pistoia, 
Poesie (1826), p. 140, canz. xv (death of Arrigo VII); Boccaccio, Filocopo 
(Opere, VII, 255, VIII, 189); also Teseide, v, 94 (ibid., IX, 181), and Donne 
Famose, p. 85 (cap. xxxi); Sercambi, Novel//e, ed. Renier, p. 304 (no. 86); 
Masuccio, I/ Novellino, p. 342; Giov. Fiorentino, Z/ Pecorone, I, 55 (iii, 1); 
Alberti, Opere, III, 380; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato, I, xii, 73, and xxi, 47 
(“Per farmi ora morir con crudeltade... Di te m’andr6 dolendo ne ’In- 
ferno”’); II, 1, 4; Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VIII, xl-xliv (“what can I give 
thee more, Fortuna, but my life?”’); XX, cxxxii-cxxxiii; XXX, liii; Trissino, 
Tutte le Opere, 1, 360 (serv.); Watriquet de Couvin, Dits, p. 214, ll. 498 fF. 
(“A tour de mort sanz redrecier”); Pierre de la Broche (Monmerqué and 
Michel, Théétre Frangais, pp. 213-214); Philippe de Beaumanoir, Jehan et 
Blonde, \\. 549 ff. (Geuvres, II, 20); Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, III, 54, 
ll. 154 ff.; G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 371 (Le Lay Mortel, 
ll. 3 fF.), 417 (Il. 62-63, “Pun garist, L’autre mourdrist’’), 480 (Il. 195 ff.), 498 
(Il. 29 ff.); Froissart, Zuores, II, 21 (Il. 704 f., “jusques a la mort le mainne”’), 
267 f. (see especially Il. 179 ff.); Deschamps, Cewores, III, 387, ll. 11-15); 
Christine de Pisan, Géuvres, 1, 11 (Cent Balades, x, ‘“Se Fortune a ma mort 
jurée”’); II, 198 (Il. 1275 ff.), 203 (Il. 1454 ff., “qui a mort me convoye”); III, 
304 (Ixxxxvi, 16 ff.); also Livre du Chemin, p. 5, \l. 110 f.; Alain Chartier, 
Cuores, pp. 534 (Complaincte contre la Mort), 677 (“et fortune sa mort quer- 
roit”’); Charles d’ Orléans, Poésies, I, 73 (“elle voulsist hors de ce monde 
oster’’); II, 154; Chaucer, Iroilus and Criseyde, ii, 335; iv, 260 ff., 274 ff, 
11g2 ff.; v, 1763-1764 (cf. Knight’s Tale, A. 925 ff.,— the ladies have lost 
their husbands, — and Monk’s Tale, B. 3586 ff., 3629 ff., 3644 ff.); Gower, 
Vox Clamantis, i, 1527 f., and Mirour de l’Omme, \l. 22061 ff. (“Huy luy fist 
Roys, et l’endemein L’enpuisonna’’); Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 3866 f. (notice 
“tyme”’); iv, 3502 ff., 3601 ff.; the Pearl, |. 306 (‘‘pa3 fortune dyd your 
flesch to dy3e”); Melusine, \l. 115 f., and the passage 269 ff. (Il. 282-283, 
thou hast destroyed and damned me); Chaucer’s Dream (or The Isle of 
Ladies), |. 198 (Works, ed. Morris, V, 92); Pinkerton, Ancient Scotish 
Poems, U1, 248, ll. 11-12 (Elegie), and 250, 1. 16, “Quhairin I knaw Fortoun 
hes maid my tomb”). See, in later times, Pischedda, Canti Popolari, pp. 


36-39. 


120 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


wheel sends men into the grave.’ Hence it is not going too 
far to say that Fortune succeeds in sometimes usurping 
the place of Death in the thought of the Middle Ages. 
Some hints as to her methods of causing death are fur- 
nished us in the theme of illnesses which she brings, and 
in the reference to her causing a man to be hanged. For- 
tune deforms, gives distemper, or brings on a fever;? and 
she may lead one to the gibbet.3 


(10) OTHER CULTS 


The “Fortune of Abundance” in Ancient Rome may 
be regarded as surviving in the general idea of Fortune 
the giver, the bestower of riches; but, on the whole, the 
lavishness of the goddess does not receive so much atten- 
tion in the Middle Ages as does the naming of her gifts. 
We know that she gives, but authors spend more of their 
time in complaining about her reluctance to give. She 
appears frequently in art with her symbol, the cornu- 


t See Death turning a wheel, Weinhold, Ghicksrad und Lebensrad, tafel ii; 
figure of Death below the wheel, Fiske’s Bid/. Notices, II, p. 38 (description of 
the 1637 ed. of Petrarch’s De Remediis); Death in the background, Fortune 
and the wheel in the foreground, Du Sommerard, 4/bum, vol. II, ser. 4, pl. 
40; grave or coffin under the wheel, Boll, Die Lebensalter, Abb. 3, 4 (opposite 
p- 144). See the centrifugal wheel, with a pit or grave under it, noticed on 
pages 160-163 below; and the wheel of Vita and Mors, discussed by Forster 
in Herrig’s Archiv, CKXIX, 45-49 (§ 18). 

2 Boccaccio, Teseide, iv, 56 (Opere, IX, 138); Burchiello, Sonetti, pp. 215- 
216; Alberti, Opere, III, 167 (“febbre”); Roman de la Rose, \l. 4916 ff.; 
Froissart, Zeuores, I, 177, ll. 3032 ff.; Dinaux, Trouvéres, I1, 181; Lydgate, 
Fabula Duorum Mercatorum, ll. 197 ff. (one of the merchants falls sick). 

3 Poliziano, Prose Volgari, p. 105 (iii), “La Fortuna disse al Salviati: Ecco 
che io ti appresento il capestro et il cappello verde; piglia quel che tu vuoi.” 
See also Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xi, 101; Roman de la Rose, \l. 6545, 6557; 
Chaucer, Monk’s Tale, B. 3924; Lindsay, Satyre of the thrie Estaits, \. 4022 
(Dissait, about to be hanged, says, “‘I trow wan-fortune brocht me heir”’). 


FUNCTIONS AND CULTS 121 


copia," but such drawings perhaps derive straight from 
classical art rather than from contemporary popular — 
thought.? | 

Bona and Mala Fortuna survive clearly enough in 
favorable and unfavorable Fortune. Perhaps in Gower’s 
line, “Tho was the fortune of prouesse,” * we have the 
idea of Fortuna Virilis! In the Fortune who limes or 
snares we have possibly a reawakening of the idea of 
Fortuna Viscata.§ 


Such are the principal divisions of the great cult of 
Fortuna during mediaeval times. To all intents and 
purposes Fortune has become the goddess of love, of the 
sea, of combat, and of fame, the deity of the individual, of 
the city and of the state, of time and of death. She 1s the 
bestower, and she is sometimes kind and sometimes un- 
kind. Let us turn back for a moment to the cults in the 
period of the Empire in Rome.® There we find the follow- 
ing classification sufficient to cover practically all the 


t See Ripa, Iconologia, p. 170 (‘‘Fortuna Buona... Donna...che... 
con la sinistra mano tiene un cornucopia”; and see four other cases on pp. 
169-171, two with the cornucopia in the right hand); Barbier de Montault, 
Traité, 1, 163, § 5; Bocchi, Symbolicae Quaestiones, symbols xxiii, xiii, xcvil; 
Cousin, pls. 5, 11, 101, 113, 145; Reinach, Répertotre, II, 247 ff. 

2 See Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, vi, 25 (Migne, vol. V, col. 1214). Cf. 
Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, met. ii, 5—6; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Re- 
gum, I, 230, § 189; Gower, Confessio Amantis, prol., ll. 137-149, 

For every climat hath his diel 
After the tornynge of the whiel, 

Which blinde fortune overthroweth; 
Whereof the certain noman knoweth. 


3 Cf. pp. 40 ff., above. 

4 Confessio Amantis, prol., |. 98. 

5 See p. 82, above. Cf. Cousin, pl. 3. 

6 See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, II, 153-156. 


$29 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


specialized cults of the worship of Fortune during her 
most flourishing period: Fortuna Bona and Mala; For- 
tune of the city; Fortune of love; Fortuna Dux, Fortune 
of the sea (the goddess behind the storm, or the deity 
who guides the vessel if we include Fortuna Dux); For- 
tune of the individual, of war, and of fame. The parallel 
of the cults is striking enough in itself without further 
comment. 

It may be objected, however, that in the Middle Ages 
we find merely the evidence of Fortune at work, whereas 
in Rome we have the established cults themselves; and 
that the comparison of Fortune’s functions with her cults 
is arbitrary and misleading. In answer to such an ob- 
jection I may say that I have compared her duties and 
activities in Rome, as inferred from her cults and from 
the passages in which her work is described, with her 
similar duties and activities in later times, and I have 
suggested that, although these duties were not formally 
prescribed or labelled during the Middle A'ges in the 
manner of officially accepted worship, yet they them- 
selves suggest the survival of the older cults in spite of 
public disapproval. The worship was stamped out, the 
temples were in ruins; but the force of the old cults re- 
mained alive, and, like a spirit among the ruins, Fortune 
continued to guide on land and on sea, to arbitrate in the 
clash of warfare, to bestow the laurel wreath, to bring 
lovers into each other’s arms, and to lead her devotee 
with particular attention through hours and days, until 
she saw fit to borrow the shears from Atropos and snip his 
thin-spun thread of life. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 


N the literature of ancient Rome there are few, if any, 
hints for the description of Fortune’s dwelling-place. 

She dwelt naturally with the other gods, and this home 
did not take the form of an actual house. Her temples 
might have offered some suggestions, but apparently 
they were not conceived under any symbolism which 
would carry out the allegory of the goddess. Of course, 
mediaeval writers always tried to be allegorical in de- 
picting her. Some material concerning palaces fit to be 
the residence of Fortune may be found in the study of 
the palace of Venus in the Court of Love,' but the pas- 
sages containing such details seem to have had little in- 
fluence on the conceptions of Fortune’s castle. 

There is one description of the abode of Venus, how- 
ever, which has possibly contributed some ideas. Clau- 
dian (fl. A.D. 400) tells us in his poem De Nuptiis Honorit 
et Mariae that the home of Venus 1s in a flat plain, on the 
top of a mountain which man cannot climb. The place is 
enclosed by a golden wall. It is not subject to storms of 
wind or snow; but perpetual spring reigns, flowers bloom, 
and birds sing continually. Two fountains are there, one 
sweet and one bitter, in which the arrows of Cupid are 
tempered. The palace where Venus is enthroned is a 


* Neilson, Origins and Sources of the Court of Love, pp. 11 ff. 


124 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


scene of splendor, built of precious stones and other rich 
materials. In it dwell various divinities besides Venus 
and her son— Licentia, Irae, Excubiae, Lacrymae, Pal- 
lor, etc.t In this summary of Claudian’s description the 
important elements to note are (1) the inaccessible moun- 
tain; (2) the garden, here not exposed to storms of any 
kind; (3) the fountains of sweet and bitter liquid; (4) the 
sumptuous and brilliant palace; (5) the court. 

These details are strikingly similar to some of those 
assigned to the dwelling-place of Fortune in mediaeval 
times as we shall see it later depicted; but without some 
further construction the symbolic meaning of the picture 
is not satisfactory for the cult of Fortune. Boethius gives 
us an account of a house that suits the inconstant char- 
acter of the fickle goddess, when he offers us advice about 
the kind of figurative abode which we who seek security 
should avoid: 


Quiquis uolet perennem 
Cautus ponere sedem 
Stabilisque nec sonori 
Sterni flatibus eur 
Et fluctibus minantem 
Curat spernere pontum, 
Montis cacumen alti, 
Bibulas uitet harenas. 
Illud proteruus auster 
Totis uiribus urget, 
Hae pendulum solutae 
Pondus ferre recusant. 
Fugiens periculosam 
Sortem sedis amoenae 
Humili domum memento 
Certus figere saxo. 


™ See Claudian, De Nuptiis, ll. 49 ff. A summary of the description ap- 
pears in Neilson’s Court of Love, pp. 15 f. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE ~ 125 


Quamulis tonet ruinis 
Miscens aequora uentus, 

Tu conditus quieti 
Felix robore ualli, 

Duces serenus aeuum 
Ridens aetheris iras.7 


Here the lofty mountain becomes an exposed and par- 
ticularly dangerous site for a dwelling, and all the more 
so if it is surrounded by the sea. The hill is swept by a 
gale, and, perhaps because of its pride in comparison with 
the modesty of the “‘humili saxo,” it all the more tempts 
the gods to smite it. One might object that this is a 
peculiarly risky location for even the goddess of chance 
to select for her permanent home; but, as I have shown 
elsewhere,’ the Fortune who first chooses this scene for 
her activities is the abstraction personified and not the 
goddess, the type and not the symbol. In other words, 
worldly possessions rest on a shaky foundation and are 
exposed to the winds of adversity, which naturally the 
real goddess could not suffer. 


* Cons. Philos., 11, met. iv: ““He that would build on a lasting resting- 
place; who would be firm to resist the blasts of the storming wind; who seeks, 
too, safety where he may contemn the surge and threatening of the sea; must 
leave the lofty mountain’s top, and leave the thirsting sands. The hill is 
swept by all the might of the headstrong gale; the sands dissolve, and will 
not bear the load upon them. Let him fly the danger in a lot which is pleasant 
rest unto the eye; let him be mindful to set his house surely upon the lowly 
rock. Then let the wind bellow, confounding wreckage in the sea, and thou 
wilt st‘ll be founded upon unmoving peace, wilt be blessed in the strength of 
thy defence; thy life will be spent in calmness, and thou mayest mock the 
raging passions of the air” (trans. W. V. Cooper, Dent ed.). For the sugges- 
tion of this passage, see Galpin, Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pudl., XXIV, 337 f. 

2 Note, too, the emphasis on the danger of the “‘bibulas harenas,”’ with 
obvious Scriptural reference. 

3 Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 189. 


126 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 
I 


The first actual account of the house of Fortune was 
given in the twelfth century by Alanus de Insulis, in his 
poem the Anticlaudianus. His description runs as fol- 
lows: 


In the midst of the sea there is a cliff, which the water lashes con- 
tinually and with which the wave disputes and has strife. This cliff, 
beaten in various wise and smitten by continual movement, is now 
fully buried in the waves; again, rising from the sea, it breathes the 
upper air. It does not retain its shape. Each moment various 
changes transform it. Now it is covered with flowers and Zephyr 
breathes upon it; again, Boreas cruelly destroys all the flowers. 
There are trees of diverse nature. One remains barren, the other 
brings forth fruit. One rejoices in new leaves, the other “reft of 
leaves doth weep.” One is green, more are sere. One blooms, the 
others are flowerless. One rises high, the others sink to earth. One 
has increase, the others waste away. The laurel wanes, the myrtle 
gives fruit. The olive is dry, the willow bears. Here thorn-thickets, 
armed with their darts, threaten wounds, and the shaggy yew hurts 
the hands as it leaps up. Seldom sings the nightingale. The owl, 
messenger of adversity, prophesies dire events. 

Here two streams flow, different in source, in appearance, and in 
taste. One has a very sweet liquid. With its honey it seduces many, 
and they that drink the waters thirst for more. Numberless drinkers 
it afflicts with the dropsy. With gentle murmur it sports along and 
flows past the cliff. Men desiring more of it plunge in, to bathe all 
their limbs in its tide. Submerged as they are, the stream carries 
them along until the fickle wave bears them again to land. The other 
stream is dark and sulphurous. Its color confounds the sight, its 
savor the taste, its rush the ear, and the nostril wearies of its insipid 
odor. On the banks rivers of tears drown many who fear to plunge 
into the torrent. The stream carries along a great throng, to bury 
them in its floods. Now it sucks some down, and now it spues them 
forth. This stream joins the sweet one and compels it to become 
cloudy and bitter. 

The house of Fortune is suspended on the steep cliff and threatens 
to fall. It suffers all the tempest of the winds. Part of the building 
swells upon the hill, the other part slopes down to the bottom of the 
valley as if ready to sink there. One part gleams with silver and 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 127 


sparkles with gems, the other part is squalid with cheap material. 
One part stands proud with a lofty roof, the other part gapes with an 
opening. ‘Here Fortune hath a dwelling-place, if ever yet any un- 
stable thing abideth anywhere, if any moving thing doth cease to 
move.” ? . 

Here we have the full description of the house, and we 
may note the following details: (1) the scene is appar- 
ently laid on an island; (2) the house is situated on a 
lofty cliff, an elevation of land; (3) it suffers the winds’ of 
both Zephyr and Boreas; (4) the garden has both fruitful 
and barren trees; (5) it has two streams, one sweet, one 
bitter; (6) the house is constructed partly of rich material 
and partly of cheap. We may see the similarity of this 
abode to that of Venus in Claudian’s poem, and yet the 
contrast is striking. In Claudian everything is pleasant, 
peaceful, and enduringly comfortable; in Alanus half of 
Fortune’s house is forbidding and perilous. 

As I have elsewhere observed,” Jean de Meun took over 
this entire description from Alanus and put it into the 
Roman de la Roses Petrarch refers to the account of 
Alanus when he says: 

Fuor tutt’i nostri lidi 
Ne l’isole famose di Fortuna, 
Due fonti a: chi de luna 
Bee, mor ridendo; e chi de !’altra, scampa.4 
The details are reproduced again in Taillevent’s Régime 


de Fortune: 
Sur lac de dueil, sur riuiere ennuieuse, 
Plaine de cris, de regretz, et de clains, 
Sur pesant sourse et melencolieuse, 


t Anticlaudianus, VII, viii-ix, and VIII, i (Migne, vol. CCX, cols, §57— 
560). 

2 See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, IV, 7. 

3 Lines 5944 ff. 4 Le Rime, ed. Mestica, p. 208 (canz. xviii, 77 ff.). 


128 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Plaine de plours, de souspirs, et de plains: 
Sur grans estangz d’amertume tous plains, 
Et de douleur sur abisme parfonde, 
Fortune la sa maison tousiours fonde 

A I’vng des lez de roche espouentable, 

Et en pendant, affin que plustost fonde, 
En demonstrant qu’elle n’est pas estable. 


The house is partly rich, partly poor; on one side are bar- 
ren fields, on the other grain and fruit. There sits For- 
tune surrounded with abundance; and so on.' 

The French tradition, which begins with the Roman de 
la Rose and continues in the Régime de Fortune, appears 
again in Lydgate’s Disguising at London, where, with an 
acknowledgment of indebtedness to the Roman, the au- 
thor speaks of Fortune’s dwelling. He says it is on a bar- 
ren rock. On one side 1s a little mountain “lyke an yle,” 
on which grow fresh flowers, trees, and fruit; birds sing 
there and “Zepherus” makes the weather clear. But sud- 
denly comes a wave that causes everything to fade. For- 
tune’s hall is located there: one side is rich with precious 
stones; the other, in ruins, is daubed with clay. As For- 
tune’s house is “‘unstable,” so she is “‘deceyvable.” ? 

The descriptions thus far owe most of their material 
ultimately to Alanus, who in turn found some hints in his 
predecessors: (1) literal detail of scenery in the Court of 
Love, and most of all in Claudian (with, however, the 
symbolic fountains); (2) symbolic suggestion and sym- 
bolic detail in Boethius. The points to note in the tradi- 
tion from Alanus are chiefly these: (1) the island, (2) the 
mountain, (3) the garden, (4) the palace, (5) the court. 

* Alain Chartier, Zuores, p. 713 (bal. iv). 


2 Brotanek, Englischen Maskenspiele, pp. 309 ff. Note also Fortune’s 
house in tapestry in Male’s L’4rt Religieux, p. 368; and see plate 7 below. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE — 129 


The court grows out of the conception of the goddess as 
queen of the household, and so is added here. 


II 
Tue IsLAnD 


The symbolic idea of the island in the accounts of For- 
tune’s home is clearly that of the remoteness and inac- 
cessibility of the desired fortune. It is covered with the 
glamour that always plays about the mental picture of a 
distant and particularly delightful region. In Roman and 
mediaeval times, travellers on sea often came home with 
tales of some island recently discovered, where the cli- 
mate was wonderfully pleasant, where the sun shone 
_more gently than anywhere else, where strange and de- 
licious fruits grew, and where life was as sweet as the 
waters of a certain fountain which bubbled there. Such 
discoveries are rarer nowadays, when the world is en- 
tirely charted and when school geographies can tell the 
“products” of any far-off point of land; but that this was 
not always the case is the happy fact to which we owe 
such ideas as the “‘Isles of the Blessed” and the “ Beauti- 
ful Isle of our Dreams.” 

Whether island or not, however, the desirable country 
has nearly always been bounded in some way by water. 
The suggestion may come as I have described; or some 
such conception as that of the “river Jordan” may spring 
from a certain physiological fact which is often noted — 
that at the approach of death the sufferer hears ‘‘the 
sound of many waters”’ in his ears and tells the people 
about him of the queer noise. Perhaps this sensation 1s 
caused by the circulation of the blood pulsating against 


130 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the sensitive nerves of the ears. However this may be, in 
death and at other times the barrier of water generally 
seems to separate us from the desired country; and so we 
hear of Atlantis, Avalon, the Isles of the Hesperides, 
the Isles of the Blessed, the Isle of Joy, the Isle of Ladies, 
the Happy Isles, and so on. The idea is familiar in the 
folk-lore of many parts of the world.* 

More obviously related to our topic are the so-called 
Fortunate Isles, famous in classical and mediaeval times.? 
Whether they were islands of real or of imaginative ex- 
perience is of no importance for us here. Perhaps some 
sea-rover actually happened on the Canary Islands (or 
others), and found them enjoyable enough to call “For- 
tunate.” At any rate, the Fortunate Isles became a 
classic example of the longed-for realm. Plutarch de- 
scribes them; Dante refers to Orosius’s account of 
them;4 Vincent of Beauvais gives some space to his 
comment on them, and says, ‘‘Propter soli fecunditatem 
easdem paradisum uocauerunt.” 5 These islands have by 
reputation a delightful climate, abundant fruits, and in- 
deed everything a person could wish. As Aeneas Sylvius 
puts it: 

t See Nutt, The Happy Otherworld, in The Voyage of Bran (ed. Meyer and 
Nutt), I, 148, 271 ff. So, too, in Pilgrim’s Progress a river encircles the Celes- 
tial City. Milton speaks of enchanted islands (Comus, i, 50, 517), refers to 
Eden as “the happy isle” (P. L., ii, 410, and cf. iii, 567, 570), and says the 
world itself was “built on circumfluous waters calm” (P. L., vii, 269-270). 
The mediaeval castle was surrounded by a moat filled with water as a safe- 
guard against intruders; but the idea of the happy island is far older than the 
Middle Ages. Further material is afforded in my article in the Mod. Lang. 
Assoc., Publ., XX XIII, 627 ff., and in the notes appended thereto. 

2 See Voyage of Bran, I, 284. 

3 In his life of Sertorius (Lives, ed. Langhorne, 1819, IV, 11-12). See 


Dieterich, Nekyia, p. 32. They appear on various ancient maps. 
4 De Monarchia, Il, ii, 87 ff. 5 Speculum Historiale, I, \xxix. 


CHARYBDIS 


RiAtes, 


THE DWELLING-PLACE 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE — 131 


Eae insulae cum saluberrimum aérem haberent, et frugibus 
abundarent: loca uero incontinenti opposita, propter diluuii hu- 
miditatem, pestilentia et frugum sterilitate laborarent, Fortunatae 
sunt cognominatae.? 


Islands like these, existing in the popular idea of the 
world and clearly very well known, would surely have had 
some influence on an author’s description of Fortune’s 
residing-place. She is, I think, described as living on an 
island because (1) the mythical idea of the country of 
abundance and riches, or the desired region of whatever 
kind, usually took the form of an island, and because (2) 
there was a belief in some actual islands that bore as their 
name a derivative from the name of the goddess. 

The idea of an island is elsewhere associated with For- 
tuna. De Guilleville puts Fortune and her wheel out in 
the sea like a floating rock or a Charybdis.? As the pil- 
grim is swimming along, he sees in the water ahead a 
great tree standing upright: 


Et cuiday quen vne ysle fust 
Du que tout oultre la mer fust. 


This tree proves later, as we shall see, to be a property of 
the goddess. 


The house of Boiardo’s Fata Morgana is on territory 


Historia de Asia Minori, cap. Ixxviiii (a mistake for lxxiv), in his Opera 
Omnia, p. 355. 

2 Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges, fols. lxvj"°-lxvij"°. There is a colored 
drawing of this idea (marked F), in Nathaniel Hill’s De Guileville, opp. p. xlii; 
also a woodcut, xvii, opp. p. xlv. See the wheel half-submerged in water 
in Van Staveren’s Auctores Mythographi, 1742, frontispiece. Here the sym- 
bolic significance of the water is slightly different from that of the sea sur- 
rounding the island: it means here simply adversity, and does not partic- 
ularly bar the approach of any one. Alberti (J/ Teog., ii, Opere, III, 204), in 
discussing Fortune’s inconstancy, refers to a moving island described by 
Pliny. 


ey) THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


surrounded by water. In the Orlando Innamorato Or- 
lando says: 


E vo’ ch’ intendi, se le cose strane 
Son date ad altri ancor da la Fortuna. 
Mio padre é Re de I’Isole lontane, 
Dove il tesor del mondo si raduna. 


This realm is not Fortune’s, however; it belongs to the 
“Fata del Tesoro,” Morgana.” In it are all the riches in 
the world to make one happy. In Boiardo’s description 
of the Fata and her dwelling-place, this is but one of 
many points of resemblance to Fortune and her house. 

The idea of an island, then, is a natural development, 
springing probably from the mythical idea of the happy 
but unattainable isle of the Otherworld, and appearing 
in some form in nearly all the accounts of Fortune’s 
home. As a symbolic attribute, it is merely one more 
of the many spontaneous growths that mark the vitality 
of the worship of the goddess. 


Ill 
THe Mountain 


The conception of a mountain as a figure of inaccessi- 
bility and adversity is common enough. One speaks of 
“scaling” one’s difficulties or “surmounting”’ an ob- 
stacle; and it is the mountain of Purgatory, we remember, 
which one has to climb on the way to Paradise. The 
mountain obviously can also symbolize degrees of exalta- 
tion and humiliation in worldly dignity. In Li Romanz 
de la Poire, Fortune attributes to herself certain powers: 


+ J, xxi, 49. 2 See I, xxii, 36; xxv, 5. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE — 133 


Reine sui del mont, ci le poez veoir. 
L’un met del val el mont et puis le faz cheoir.? 


Watriquet de Couvin places a whole city (of which For- 
tune is porter) on a mountain-top: 


Moult 1 sont riche li citains, 

Se touz jors leur durast si tains, 

Mais il leur faut, combien qu’ il tarde, 
Quant le mains s’en donnent de garde; 
Quar cil qui au plus haut demeure 
Trebusche et chiet en petit d’eure 

En mains c’on ne tourne sa main 
Reversoient, et soit et main, 

Tout bas ou fons de la valée. 


King, duke, prince, and lord are cast down, 


Car cilz qui plus haut se seoit, 
Plus griément chet se veoit. 


In the horrible valley below Death receives the victims.’ 
The figure is doubled in Nicole de Margival’s Panthére 
d’ Amours. The lover travels to the house of Fortune: 


Tant alames par nos jornees, 
Par montaignes et par valees, 
Qu’en assez petite saison 
Venismes droit a la maison 

De Fortune l|’aventureuse. 
Moult est la maison perilleuse, 
Car elle siet toute sus glace, 

Qui dure quel temps que il face.4 


Here the road to the house lies partly across mountainous 
country, and the foundation of the house itself is a rock 


= J. e., “world.” 

2 Lines 45-46. For the mountain in such descriptions and in folk-lore, see 
Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pud/., XX XIII, 606 ff. 

3 Dis de I’ Escharbote, \\. 101 ff. (Dits, pp. 400 ff.). Cf. the wheel on the 
mountain (“‘le plus haute kil ueist onques”’) in the Mort Artu, p. 220. 

4 Panthere, ll. 1958-1965. 


134 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


of ice, which includes the idea of brittleness or lack of 
durability, and perhaps the idea of slipperiness in climb- 
ing." 

Thomas, Marquis of Saluzzo, in his Chevalier Errant 
(a document of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century), 
develops the figure of the mountain still further. The 
dwelling of Fortune is on the highest rock that the eye has 
ever seen. It dominates the whole country. At the top 
are two fearful precipices, near which the goddess is seated 
on a throne upheld by three lions. She rises in wrath and 
causes kings and emperors to be thrown from the height. 
On the side of the rock is a more terrible scene, for there 
traitors of all kinds are drawn and quartered.? 

Similarly, in Fregoso’s Dialogo di Fortuna we read of 
the approach, over a hard and thorny road, to a beauti- 
ful palace on a mountain-top, where Fortune dispenses 

t On Chaucer’s rock of ice, see Sypherd’s Studies in Chaucer’s Hous of 
Fame, pp. 117 f. Sir William Jones borrows Chaucer’s rock of ice for his 
“Palace of Fortune” (Works, 1807, X, 214). Cf. also Fame’s house in Dek- 
ker’s Troia-Nova Triumphans (Mod. Lang. Notes, XXXIII, 178 f.). See 
the mention of a house of glass in La Folie Tristan (ed. J. Bédier, Paris, 
1907), ll. 295-310 of the Oxford text. The house seems to be situated in the 
air. For the whole matter the references in Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pudi., 
XXXII, p. 610, n. 30, should be consulted. 


2 See the summary of § vi, in Gorra’s Studi, pp. 45 ff. Cf. G. de Ma- 
chaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 415, ll. 15-18: 
Et Fortune m’a dou vent 
D’un tourbillon 
Tumé jus de sa maison 
En fondement. 
3 Cf. the difficult approach in Frezzi’s Quadriregio, 1, 147 (lib. ii, cap. xiii, 
I ff.), and in Nicole de Margival’s Panthére, ll. 1958 ff. The barrier to For- 
tune’s abode is like that to the approach of the Otherworld or the Earthly 
Paradise, and is probably related toit. For material with regard to the latter, 
see my article in Mod. Lang. Notes, XXXIV, 321 ff., especially p. 322 and 
note 3. Cf. the lofty mountain forest in Spanish literature, idid., p. 324, n. 9. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 135 


gifts. One must have a guide to go up the mountain, be- 
cause it is so slippery: 
Et quando piu felice, e piu giocondo, 


Di questi alcun nel colmo esser si crede 
Spesso se troua in un momento al fondo. 


The guides waiting for travellers are Iuista, Audacia, 
Fraude, Lealta, Valore, Prudentia, Fortezza, and so on. 
Whoever ascends to the top lives there secure, without 
fear of Fortune.* 

The idea of the mountain is referred to by Jean de 
Condé: 


Cil haus mons le te fait savoir 

Que tés lieve haitiez au main 

Qu’en mains c’om ne tourne sa main, 
Trebuche et muert en petit d’eure.? 


Ariosto interprets the figure of the mountain in the fol- 
lowing manner: 
Questo monte é la ruota di Fortuna, 
Nella cui cima il volgo ignaro, pensa 
Ch’ ogni quiete sia, né ve n’é alcuna.3 
Thus he, too, lays chief emphasis on the idea of exaltation 
and humiliation. 

The mountain, then, according to Alanus, meant the 
difficulty of reaching Fortune’s gifts and the perishable 
foundation on which they rest. Nicole de Margival 
stressed the second of these ideas. In Thomas of Saluzzo, 
Fregoso, Jean de Condé, and Ariosto we have a new in- 
terpretation: the mountain appears to mean degrees of 


* Dialogo, caps. xiii ff. The lines quoted, and the names of the guides, are 
in cap. xv, sig. C8. 

2 Baudouin and Jean de Condé, Dits et Contes, iii, 54, ll. 160-163. 

3 Rime e Satire, p. 207 (sat. ili). 


136 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


honor and exaltation bestowed by Fortune. But, what- 
ever the meaning ascribed to the figure, it seems to per- 
sist in pictures of Fortune’s house,’ and perhaps the most 
enduring idea connected with it is that of the inaccessi- 
bility of the top and the slipperiness of the sides.” 


IV 
THE GARDEN 


The beautiful garden on the mountain-top in Clau- 
dian’s poem does not change; but Fortune’s garden, ac- 


t Cf. Trissino, Italia Liberata, I, 78 f. (lib. xi): 


Qui presso é la peninsula di Circe, 
C’ha sopra il monte un’ odorata selva 
Di cedri, e di verdissimi cipressi; 

Ove é una Fata di valore immenso, 
Nominata Plutina, che nel volto 

Par giovinetta, & é matura d’anni; 
Tal che di eta non cede a la Sibilla. 
Gran tempo fa, ch’ella divenne cieca; 
Ma se potesse racquistar la vista, 
Faria veder di se cose mirande; 

Poi st: quel monte una spelunca giace, 
Circondata dal mar verso Ponente, etc. 


With this, compare the description of the plateau of Venus given by Claudian, 
referred to above, pp. 123 f. See Melusine (ll. 4621-4634), where Palestine 
dwells on a high mountain to guard her father’s treasure there: 


Till som approche and come, of linage our, 
To that hy mountain by fors and strenght he 
To ascende an-hye Aboue the hill to see, 
The tresour caste oute, and after shall conquere 
The lande of promission by hys powere. 


In the Contention between Liberality and Prodigality (1602, Malone Soc. re- 
print, 1913, act iv, scene iv), Prodigalitie, assisted by Dicke Dicer and Tom 
Tosse, scales the wall of Fortune’s dwelling. 

2 For the slipperiness of one’s stand in Fortune’s house, cf. Carmina 
Burana, p. 45, xxv, st. 1 (“O varium fortune lubricum”); G. de Machaut, 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 137 


cording to Alanus, suffers continual variation. The hint 
for this symbolism, like that of the rock and the sea, was 
also, perhaps, found in Boethius: 


Licet caelo proferre lucidos dies eosdemque tenebrosis noctibus 
condere, licet anno terrae uultum nunc floribus frugibusque redimire 
nunc nimbis frigoribusque confundere.* 


Somewhat different from the tradition of the changing 
garden is the scene of Fortune’s home in the dream of 
Aeneas Sylvius: 


Iam noctis decurso spatio, syderibus dubiis postquam pigri 
Boetae frigida farrata circumegerant, uisionem hanc habui. In locos 
laetos et amena uireta deueni, gramineus campus in medio fortunati 
nemoris erat, riuo cinctus et muro, duae illic portae.... Illic florea 
prata, riui tum lacte tum uino currentes, frigidi fontes, lacus piscibus 
pleni, balnea suauissima, densi luci, uineta semper uuis onusta, ar- 
bores perpetui autumni, quales hortus Hesperidum, uel Pheates 
habuisse creduntur. Poma quorum sola pascaris odore per syluas, 
ferae mansuetae captu faciles: Volucres et aesui, et cantui natae, 
unicus est apud Aethiopes locus Heliotrapezam nuncupatus, opiparis 


Remede de Fortune, |. 1030 (“Et ses richesses glace en four’’); Hoccleve, Rege- 
ment of Princes, ll. 1352 ff.; James I, Kingis Quhair, stanzas g, 163 (the slip- 
pery footing on the wheel); John Stewart, Roland Furious, xi, 125-126 (the 
“‘slipprie solas” of Fortune “‘als schortlie slyd As yse dissolues vith flam of 
feruent fyre’”’). See Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, III, iii, 84-88: 


Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, 
The love that lean’d on them as slippery too, 

Do one pluck down another and together 

Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me: 

Fortune and I are friends. 


* Cons. Philos., Il, pr. ii, 21 ff. ‘‘The heavens may grant bright sunlit 
days, and hide the same beneath the shade of night. The year may deck the 
earth’s countenance with flowers and fruits, and again wrap it with chilling 
clouds” (Cooper’s trans.). Cf. Henricus Septimellensis, Tratiato, 1730, p. 10: 


Sic solet arboreas Boreas euoluere frondes, 
Sic rota mortales, sic aqua saeua rotam. 


138 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


epulis semper refertus quibus indiscretim omnes uescuntur: apud 
quem lacus tenuis laticis haustu saluberrimus. Hic plurima sunt 
huiusmodi loca, mensae sub arboribus paratae gemmatis uasculis 
paterisque aureis oneratae. Nullum ualernum comparari uino po- 
test, quod ex uiuo saxo illic manat. Mella passim fluunt, arundineta 
saccharo plena. Omne genus aromatum ex arbore cadit. Auri et 
argenti inexhaustae minerae. Lapilli praeciosi tanquam cerusa in 
nemoribus pendent, uenustae puellae, elegantesque iuuenes per- 
petuas ducunt choreas. Quicquid musicum est, illic resonat. Nan 
tam uoluptuosam suis sequacibus paradisum Mahometus repromisit, 
quam hic uidisses. Dispensatores huc et illuc discurrebant, Bachus 
Ceres et Venus.? 


There is little left to add to this picture. We must note 
that the scene is not subject to change: the abundance 
does not decrease, the stream flows with untainted honey, 
the splendor is not diminished. 

Fregoso’s Dialogo di Fortuna gives us the picture of a 
great tree on the top of his mountain, on which ripen 
wondrous apples which Fortuna gives away to those who 
ascend.? In Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, Roland en- 
ters a wonderful garden, where he sees a fountain made of 
precious stones, beside which lies the beautiful Fata Mor- 
gana.3 

De Guilleville’s pilgrim, it will be remembered, sees a 
tree standing in the middle of the ocean. As he ap- 
proaches he discovers that the tree is full of nests, some 
high, some low, some large, some small: 


t Pontif. Epist., 1, cviii (Opera Omnia, pp. 611-612). 

2 Dialogo, cap. xiii. See also the tree bearing golden apples “‘as large as the 
human head”’, in Orlando Innamoraio, I, v, stanzas 7-8; and, at I, xxv, st. 
11, cf. the antlers of the white stag, their branches laden with treasures. A 
fruit-tree of some kind is always found in the Otherworld garden, from which 
these accounts, of course, derive in various ways. Cf. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 
Publ., XXXII, 624 ff., with references. 

3 Orlando, II, viii, 40 fF. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE — 139 


Et en diuerses branches mis 
Par semblant larbre creux estoit 
Enhault dedens vng trou auoit 
-Par lequel vne main aux nidg 
Tendait vng croq a mon aduis 
Pour les oyseaulx ius trebucher 
A son pouoir et desnicher. 


Below are several persons thrusting their heads out to look up at the 
top and often stretching out their hands to get hold of the higher 
branches; the goddess Fortune has a forked stick to pull them down. 
The tree is the world, with men of different rank in it; Fortune with 
her forked stick pulls some of them down, but she uses the crook to 


help others up.t 


Here the significance of the tree is changed. It has be- 
come the symbol of varying degrees of dignity, and its 
fruit does not represent the gifts of Fortune. Perhaps 
Deschamps had a tree like this in mind, when he wrote: 

Car par orgueil vient tribulacion. 
Fortune a tost getté feur, 

De l’arbre hault les fueilles et la fleur; 

Mais pou grieve l’arbre d’umilité.? 

Another picture in a manuscript shows us a large tree, 
with Fortune standing on the top and armed men in the 
branches. This is obviously the tree of warfare and suc- 
cess in war. It is hard to tell whether there is any idea of 
exaltation or humiliation intended in the relative height 
of the branches, but apparently there is no such meaning. 


* Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges, fols. \xvj ¥° f. See the lines (fol.Ix vij), 


Sur lespaule vng baston portant 
Crochu et fourchu par deuant. 


2 Cuores, III, 134, ll. 40-43. Fortune turns the leaves of her book: ibid., X, 
p. Ixxxv (Ixxvi, 13-15). 

3 For a description of the picture, see Sir Gilbert Hay’s Manuscript, I, pp. 
Ixxiii ff.; the picture itself is in a folder at the back of the volume. The MS. 
is of the year 1456 or later (see introd., p. xix). See also L’ Arbre des Bat- 
tailles, by Honoré Bonet, British Museum MS., Royal 20 C viii, f. 2¥°. 


140 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


The garden, the flowers, and the tree, then, are all ele- 
ments in the descriptions of Fortune’s abode. Of For- 
tune herself we read in one place: 


Her right syde full of somer flours, 
The tother oppressed with winters stormy showres.? 


Flowers, therefore, and the tree with its fruit mean 
prosperous Fortune.. Sometimes, however, as in De 
Guilleville and Deschamps, the tree represents the idea 
of varying degrees of dignity, and once at least it relates 
to success in war. 


Vv 
THE PALACE 


According to Alanus’s view, the palace in which For- 
tune lives is partly rich and sumptuous and partly 
squalid and perilous; but there are other ideas about her 
dwelling which do not carry on this tradition. Watri- 
quet de Couvin’s city on the mountain, for example, is 


une cité cretelée 
De marbre, a bretesche et a tour, 
Faite de riche noble atour, 
Car n’est hom qui onques veist 
Plus bele ne tant haut seist.... 
Car plus y ot de melodie 
.C. mile tans que ne vous die; 
Ce sembloit paradis terrestre. ... 
Or doi de la cité conter, 
De quoi Fortune les clés porte, 
Et est portiére de la porte, 


™ Lydgate, Fall of Princes, VI, i, st. 3 (fol. cxliti of 1554 ed., cxxxiv of 
1558 ed.) Cf. Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, met. v, 6-g; and see Galpin, Mod. 
Lang. Assoc., Pud/., XXIV, 339. For an account of the Vatican drawing of 
Fortune crowned with flowers and holding a bunch of them, see Barbier de 
Montault, Traité, I, 163, § 5. 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 141 


Car sanz li n’1 puet estre entrée 
Personne ne passer |’entrée.: 


Of this description two points are worth noting: (1) the 
city is beautiful, being constructed of marble; (2) there is 
a gate through which can pass only such persons as its 
keeper (in this case Fortune herself) permits. 

Nicole de Margival, in his account of the castle of For- 
tune, keeps true to the idea of Alanus: 


Mais moult belle est d’une partie, 
Et noble et de tous biens garnie; 
De l’autre partie est si gaste 

Que nul n’i a ne pain ne paste, 
Et est ruineuse et deserte, 

Si despeciee, si desperte, 

Que s’il espartist, pleut ou vente, 
Nulz ne mest la qui ne s’en sente; 
Car la pluie, vens et espars 

Se fierent ens de toutes pars.? 


The gates of Fortune’s house are described by Aeneas 
Sylvius: 


Duae illic portae, et altera cornea, altera candenti nitens ele- 
phante. Muri altissimi ex adamante constructi.... Nulli accessus 
ad portas nisi per pontes, qui tamen cathenis eleuati paucis ad- 
uenientibus dimittebantur.... Veni ad coream portam, in cuius 
summo haec uerba literis antiquis inscripta, conspexi: paucos ad- 
mitto, seruo pauciores.3 


t Dis del Escharbote, \l. 74 ff. (Dits, pp. 399 f.). In the Roman de Fauvel, 


Fortune’s home is in “‘Macrocosme,” 


Une cité de grant fantosme, 
Qui fu jadis faite pour l’omme 
Que Raison Microcosme nomme 
(Langfors’s ed., ll. 1852-1854). 
2 Panthére, \l. 1966-1975. 
3 Pontif. Epist., 1, cviii (Opera Omnia, p. 611). 


142 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Here we must note the two gates, the bridges crossing the 
river which has been already referred to," and the inscrip- 
tion. To this account of Fortune’s estate the description 
of the home of the Fata Morgana is again strikingly 
similar. The Fata’s realm is surrounded by a river over 
which is a bridge with two armed figures standing guard 
beside it. When Orlando attempts to go across, the bridge 
is demolished, and, though a new one rises in place of 
the one that disappears, the same thing always happens 
again; but he finally leaps the river.? He is told of a horn, 
which, if blown, will destroy the whole world. He comes 
to a cavern, where, in the cornice of black rock, are cut 


the words: 
Tu che sei giunto, o Dama, o Cavaliero, 
Sappi, che quivi facile é l’entrata, 
Ma il risalir da poi non é leggero, 
A cui non prende quella buona Fata, etc.4 


The palace of Fortune in Fregoso’s Dia/ogo is beautiful 
with the kind of beauty that deceives the eye. It is sur- 
rounded by a great wall, which apparently guards the 
structure of precious stones. Four large portals, with a 
triumphal arch and a tower on each, face the four points 
of the compass, to show that people may enter from all 
climes and at all seasons. At the top of the palace is a 
colossus of gold.° 


t Above, pp. 129 f. Cf. Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pudl., XXXII, 627 f. and notes. 

2 Orlando Innamorato, II, viii, 19-23. For such bridges across the river- 
barrier, see Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pud/., XX XIII, 635 f. and notes; for the 
armed figures, see Mod. Philol., X, 511 f. 

3 Orlando Innamorato, II, vii, 42. Perhaps this comes from the same story 
which is told in the original ballad of “‘Childe Roland to the dark tower 
came.” The “slughorn” is here to be set to the lips, and the dark tower 
practically belongs to Fortune. 4 Ibid., I, viii, 39. 

5 Dialogo di Fortuna, caps. xiii-xv. Cf. the description of Frau Saelde’s 
house in Heinrich von dem Tirlin’s Diu Créne, ll. 15649 ff.; note the detail of 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE 143 


The chief elements in the palace of Fortune, then, are 
(1) the bridges over the encircling river, (2) the precious 
materials out of which the city is built, (3) the portals. 
The descriptions vary considerably, but the important 
and persistent idea is the richness of the castle and the 
difficulty in entering it. 


VI 
THE Court 


Within the palace Fortune is naturally queen, and, as 
we have observed,’ this conception of her royalty is fre- 
quent enough. In the Roman de la Rose she is dressed 
“cum une roine’’;? in Watriquet de Couvin she controls 
the inhabitants of the city — kings, dukes, princes, lords, 
and the rest. 

As for the actual palaces of Fortune, in that of Nicole 
de Margival’s Panthéere the goddess stands at the entrance 
to receive travellers, assigning them to one of the two 
parts of the house, which are designated Prosperity and 
Adversity. Here she clearly exercises the power of a 
monarch; and in the Chevalier Errant of Thomas of 
Saluzzo she has a similar dignity, for in her palace are 
found all the great personages of all time — Penthesilea, 
Pope Gregory, Agamemnon, Caesar and Hector (two of 


precious stones and the towers. See, too, the palace in Machiavelli’s Capitolo 
di Fortuna (Opere, VII, 367): 
Sopra un palazzo da ogni parte aperto 
Regnar si vede, ed a verun non toglie 
L’entrar in quel, ma é l’uscire incerto. 
™ Above, p. 60. 2 Line 6146, 
3 Dis del’ Escharbote, \\. 115 ff., and see 169 ff. (Dits, pp. 400 ff.). 
4 Panthére, \l. 1976 ff. For another use of the names Prosperity and Ad- 
versity, see below, p. 164, n. 2. 


144 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the Nine Worthies), Nebuchadnezzar, Pharoah, Nero, 
Attila, and so on.’ Christine de Pisan puts guards at the 
various doors of her palace of Fortune: Dame Richece at 
the first, surrounded by princes, dukes, counts, cardinals, 
and bishops; Esperance at the second; and Poverty at the 
third, with Atropos. Famous men inhabit the castle — 
Richard the Second, Pierre de Lusignan, and so on,? all of 
them presumably Fortune’s subjects or attendants, who 
dwell with her. 

Aeneas Sylvius gives the most luxurious account of the 
court scene: 


Tentoria illic purpurea erant, margaritis ornata, quae centum 
iugera cooperiebant. In medio solium erat peraltum, lucens claris 
Smaragdis, miri praeterea lapides, ebur, solium uestiebant.... In- 
credibile est gemmarum, quae illic perlucent, si quis referat multi- 
tudinem. Ipsa fortuna grandis matrona, duplicis aspectus, blando 
uultu, nunc terrifico: Vestibus auratis gemmatisque altiorem cho- 
rum tenebat, oculis grandioribus. Sed plerunque clausis in auribus 
caeras uidi illa de naui petitas, quae Siculos cautus effugit remige 
surdo. Cadeceum in manu tenebat. In dextera eius dominatus sede- 
bat honor, fauor, splendor, gaudium, officium, festus, risus, amor 
coniugum, uigor, rubor, decus, cantus, potus. Nec minori loco, fama, 
gloria, uictoria, nobilitas, reuerentia, pax, laetitia, potentia, forma, 
laus, gratia, suauitas, iocunditas [etc.]... Ad pedes eius quasi 
ancillae siue pedistequae, diuitiae, pecuniae, delitiae, blanditiae, 
uoluptatesque stabant arrectis auribus, si quid tussisset hera audi- 
turae facturaeque. In gramine uero locoque decliui sellae plurimae 


* Gorra, Studi, pp. 47 ff. 

2 Koch, Christine de Pizan, pp. 68-69 (summary of La Mutacion de For- 
the sciences, the history of the Jews, etc. See also Machiavelli, Capitolo di 
Fortuna (Opere, VII, 367): - 

Tutto il mondo d’intorno vi si accoglie 
Desideroso veder cose nuove, 
E pien d’ambizion, e pien di voglie. 
Chance and Lot sit over the doors (p. 368). 


DWELLING-PLACE OF FORTUNE — 145 


cernebantur orchestra tectae, ubi plurimas umbras sedere conspexi 
[the throng below her include all the famous names in history]... . 
Post hae ad sinistram me uerti. Ibi paupertas sedebat, ignominia, 
derisus, iniuriae, morbi, senectus, tormenta, carceres, fames, dolor, 
stridor, timor, pudor, odium [etc., etc.] ... et mille malorum nom- 
ina, campi sitientes nudi ac lapidibus tectis 


VII 
SUMMARY 


The dwelling-place of Fortune is, then, first described 
in a long account by Alanus de Insulis. From this ac- 
count two traditions of the site develop: (1) that of the 
island, (2) that of the mountain. The mountain receives 
special attention in Nicole de Margival, Thomas of 
Saluzzo, and in Fregoso, with whom it becomes a symbol 
not only of inaccessibility and danger, but of degrees of 
dignity accorded by Fortuna. Essential points in the 
description of the site are the garden, the flowers, and the 
trees; the tree, like the mountain, also becomes a special 
symbol of degree of exaltation. The castle sometimes 
leaves the direct line of tradition from Alanus and appears 
merely as a sumptuous palace which 1s not divided into 
good and wretched sections. Later, perhaps through in- 
fluence from the Court of Love, it becomes the scene of a 
splendid court, with numerous courtiers taken from his- 
tory.’ 

To sum up the meanings implied in all of these sym- 
bols, the permanent ideas seem to be: (1) the inaccessi- 

* Pontif. Epist., 1, cviii (Opera Omnia, pp. 613 ff.). 

2 See the borrowed details of all these points in Chaucer’s Hous of Fame 
(cf. Sypherd’s Studies, pp. 112 ff.). Sir William Jones, in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, restores the house to Fortune by borrowing features from Chaucer’s 


poem: see his Palace of Fortune (Works, 1807, X, 211-229), and E. Koeppel’s 
article on it in Englische Studien, XXVIII, 43-53. 


146 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


bility of the house of Fortune, (2) its richness, and (3) the 
varying rewards received on getting there. In other 
words, the benefits of Fortune are hard to achieve, they 
are precious from a worldly point of view, they are be- 
stowed in different measure. A celestial atmosphere 
clings about the place.t The island, and possibly the 
mountain, have an ancestry in folk-lore with which the 
idea of “‘the happy Otherworld”’ is connected. Perhaps 
the conception is not entirely unrelated to our present 
figure of a “Castle in Spain.” At any rate, the whole 
image is not so much a poetic creation as an automatic 
erowth developing according to its own laws, and the 
same elements persist in nearly all the descriptions, in 
whatever way these may be interpreted. 


t See the word “paradis” on p. 140, above; and cf. the islands on pp. 130 f. 
Cf. the paradise on the mountain of purgatory (Dante, Purgatorio, xxviii), 
with its double river, its flowers, and its gentle breeze; cf., too, the islands in 
the Voyage of Bran (see P32 above), The Roman de B Rose, |. 5941, has 

“*Qu’ele ait en paradis maison.’ 


CHAPTER V 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 


N° symbolic attribute is so familiar in accounts and 
pictures of Fortune as the wheel. It so often ap- 
pears in the portrayals of her, either as turned by her 
fickle hand or as standing near her with the possibility of 
suddenly beginning to revolve, that even when we find it 
alone, without the goddess, we are strongly tempted to 
call it Fortune’s wheel anyway. But the wheel is a sym- 
bol with an almost limitless significance. At one time or 
another the circular form has been used to typify speed," 
travel, guidance,” the endless round of monotonous exis- 
tence, changeableness, the sun,’ the earth, God, and eter- 
nity.4 Definition is therefore necessary to determine 
what the peculiar meaning of Fortune’s wheel is, and to 
discover what particular wheel rightly belongs to her. 

In order to suit the character of Fortune most appro- 
priately, the wheel must in some way represent the idea 
of variation and change. It must do so even in the case of 


1 The wheel with a wing upon it. Cf. Cousin’s Livre de Fortune, pl. 115. 
See p. 45, notes 3, 4, above. 

2 The steering-wheel. Cf. the windlass figure in Horace, Carmina, III, x, 
10. 

3 See Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaulois, § xvi, pp. 56 ff. 

4 In fact, some scholars believe that in Roman times the wheel was not 
associated particularly with Fortuna. See Roscher, who notes (cols. 1506- 
1507) that in art the wheel is not commonly related to Fortune, but cites ex- 
amples from literature to show that the use must have been known. See also 
Matzke on the source of “To take Time by the Forelock,” Mod. Lang. 
Assoc., Pudl., VIII, 328. 


148 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


the Christian figure, for she too is outwardly a variable 
creature. This idea the wheel can present in at least two 
ways: (I) it would seem untrustworthy enough merely in 
its function of turning, and (2) it would form an insecure 
footing for the goddess. 

How did such symbolism become associated with For- 
tuna? The stages of development might have been as 
follows: In its earliest use the wheel seems to have meant 
instability rather than variation.t Just as the castle of 
Fortune stands on a shaky foundation, so Fortune herself 
may be thought of as standing on some changing, roving 
pedestal; and what better pedestal for her than a sphere 
or a ball?? The figure of Fortune standing on a sphere 
was known in the art of ancient Rome,’ and is preserved 
in drawings of the middle ages. Art in the flat, in bas- 
reliefs, reproduced the ball by means of a circular line, 
and so the wheel came into use as a symbol of instability. 
The figure of Fortune standing on a wheel persisted in 
mediaeval art, which in these drawings copied the old 
Roman figures.5 


t For the development in Rome, see Weinhold’s Gliicksrad und Lebensrad; 
for some suggestion of this order of development, see Roscher, col. 1506. 

2 I leave out of account the question whether this ball was originally the 
sun or the moon. By the time Fortune became fickle, the idea of sun or 
moon was certainly lost, and so the process of interpretation becomes the 
same. 

3 See Roscher, col. 1504; Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaulois, p. 56. J. A. Hild, in 
Daremberg-Saglio’s Dictionnaire, p. 1277, says that the sphere is of purely 
Roman origin and that the cornucopia is the Greek symbol. The develop- 
ment of the wheel as here described is suggested by Kirby Smith, The Elegies 
of Albius Tibullus (N. Y., 1913), pp. 306 ff., n. 70. 

4 See above, p. 45, n. 4. 

5 According to Barbier de Montault (Traité, I, 163, § 5), in the episco- 
pal chair at St. Bertrand de Comminges Fortune stands on a broken wheel 
and thus fails in her footing. In Cousin’s figure 193 she stands on a globe 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 149 


But Fortune who totters about on a wheel in art or in 
literature is not so much the goddess as the type. Not 
until the wheel itself becomes a symbol of variation, 
turned possibly by the hand of the goddess, have we a 
really good allegory for the divine figure. This is the 
figure, it is significant to note, out of which the Middle 
Ages made so much, and it is the complexities of this rep- 
resentation that the following study will attempt to 
make at least a little clearer. The method of study will 
be to consider, first, the possible origins or beginnings of 
the idea in Rome, and, secondly, the later developments 
in mediaeval literature and art. 


| 
THE CLASSICAL FIGURE 


The wheel of Fortune in Roman art apparently does 
not represent the conception of a wheel directly control- 
ling man’s affairs.' The idea in art is merely, as I have 


with her wheel broken on the ground beside her. See also Scarlattini’s de- 
scriptions, Homo Symbolicus (1695), II, 70; and, much earlier, Alciati’s 
emblem of “In Occasionem”’ in the 1536 edition of his emblems (ed. Green, 
Fontes Quatuor, 1870, wheel upright), and in the Lyons, 1551, edition (ed. 
Green, Flumen Abundans, 1871, p. 133, wheel flat). Schoonhoven’s second 
emblem shows Fortune, or “Sors,” prostrate on her flat wheel. Fortune 
shared the symbol of the wheel with the Fates and with Nemesis: see Roscher, 
col, 1506; Alciati’s “Nec Verbo nec Facto quenquam Laudendum” (1531 ed. 
of emblems, Green’s Fontes Quatuor, 1870, sig. A 7); and cf. Cousin’s plates 
127, 129. The idea of Fortune standing on a wheel is introduced by Lydgate 
into his translation of De Guilleville’s Pelerinaige de l Homme (see Lydgate’s 
Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, \\. 19470 ff.) For the wheel in Greek, Professor 
Yeames of Hobart College has given me references to Herodotus, 1, 207, and 
to Sophocles, fragment 809 (cf. Jebb’s note on the Antigone, 1156 f.). 

t Galpin (Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pud/., XXIV, 332) makes this observation. 
See S. L. Wolff, Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fiction, p. 387, n. 31. 


150 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


already suggested, that Fortune is on a moving founda- 
tion. In literature, however, we see a closer connection 
between the wheel and the fortunes of men. A few ex- 
amples are enough to illustrate this idea. 

Ammianus Marcellinus has, 


Fortunae uolucris rota, aduersa prosperis semper alternans; * 


and in another place, 


Ea uictoria ultra homines Procopius sese efferens, et ignorans 
quod quiuis beatus uersa rota Fortunae ante uesperum potest esse 
miserrimus.? 


Seneca makes one of his choruses sing: 


Ut praecipites regum casus 
Fortuna rotat! 3 


Here we see a vital relation between the wheel and human 
fortune. In the first two examples there does not seem to 
be any implication that Fortune herself revolves with the 
wheel, or shows that instability which had been sym- 
bolized in the figure of her standing on such a founda- 
tion; in the last one (which, by the way, is fully three 
centuries earlier) Fortune appears to rotate human af- 
fairs by her own power. It seems ridiculous to suppose 
that — at least after the wheel received any conscious 
attention — there was any conception of its having arbi- 
trary power to turn human life without the superior 
control of the goddess.‘ 

t Res Gestae, XXXI,1, § 1. 2 Ibid., XXVI, viii, § 13. 

3 Agamemnon, ll. 71-72. See, too, Cicero’s oration against Piso, cap. x, 
“Fortunae rotam pertimescebat.” Cf. Aeneid, vi, 748-749; Tibullus, I, v, 
69-70, and cf. the notes in Kirby F. Smith’s edition, 1913, p. 306. 

4 In the confused figure described below (pp. 152 ff.), where Fortune 


herself is turned on the wheel, she has really become a type, as the discus- 
sion shows. 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 151 


By the fifth or sixth century, at any rate, the wheel was 
no longer thought of as independent. Boethius uses the 
figure of Fortune’s controlling it as if the idea were per- 
fectly familiar. He makes Fortune say: 

Rotam uolubili orbe uersamus, infima summis summa infimis 


mutare gaudemus. Ascende si placet, sed ea lege, ne uti cum ludicri 
mei ratio poscet, descendere iniuriam putes. 


Here the goddess herself professes to turn the wheel; low 
becomes high and high becomes low; one may voluntarily 
ascend to the top, and therefore human figures are con- 
ceivably attached to the wheel. There is not the slightest 
hint that Fortune revolves with it; on the contrary, she is 
in charge of affairs and does not suffer the reversals. 

Unfortunately we have no smooth succession of refer- 
ences to the wheel from the time of Boethius to that of 
Dante. We must leap a gulf of several centuries and pass 
on to the twelfth before we can tell what tradition has 
been established; but there in many works we find For- 
tune responsible for the turns of the wheel. For instance, 
we read: 


Sic fortuna uices uariat, sic infima summis 
Summaque commutat, sua cum rota uoluitur, ymis.? 


Again, Fortune herself revolves the wheel in the de- 
scription by Henricus Septimellensis;* and the theme of 
“high and low” is found, together with Fortune’s control 
of the wheel, in Floire et Blanceflor,s in Le Donnei des 


* Cons. Phsilos., Il, pr. 11, 28-31. 

2 Gesta di Federico, \l. 441-442; see discussion of date, pref., pp. xiv ff. 

3 Trattato, 1730, pp. 14 f. 

4 Page 92, ll. 2243 ff., which are almost literally taken over from Boethius; 
notice |, 2244, “fait sa roe torner.” 


152 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Amants, and in Marie de France’s “lai” of Guigemar.? 
These allusions might seem to settle the tradition from 
. the classics, for at first glance the train of development 
seems to be as follows: classical literature connects the 
wheel intimately with the turns of human affairs; Boe- 
thius puts man himself on the wheel and seems to suggest 
that Fortune herself turns it, probably by hand; writers 
in the twelfth century use this conception as if it were 
quite established and thoroughly familiar. 

But there is another tradition which may cause us a 
little dificulty. Sometimes a passage remains ambiguous 
as to whether the wheel is actually turned by the god- 
dess,3 but in the first quarter of the twelfth century Hono- 
rius of Autun describes a figure which he apparently owes 
to tradition and in which Fortune herself clearly suffers 
the revolutions of the great symbol: 

Scribunt itaque philosophi quod mulier rota innexa iugiter cir- 
cumferatur; culus caput nunc in alta erigatur, nunc in ima demerga- 
tur. Rota haec quae uoluitur est gloria huius mundi quae iugiter 
circumfertur. Mulier rotae innexa est fortuna gloriae intexta. 
Huius caput aliquando sursum, aliquando fertur deorsum, quia 


plerique multocies potentia et diuitiis exaltantur, saepe egestate et 
miseriis exalliantur.4 


Now, it seems clear that the philosophers to whom Hono- 
rius refers did not include Boethius, for the latter’s de- 
scription is certainly not specific enough for any such 


1 Edited by G. Paris, in Romania, XXV, 505, ll. 277 fF. 

2 Lines 538 ff. See, too, Alanus de Insulis (twelfth century), 4nticlau- 
dianus, VIII, 1 (Migne, vol. CCX, col. 560). 

3 See Orderic Vital, in Bouquet’s Recueil, XII, 723, C (“Fortune ceu rota 
uergibilis est,” etc.); Wright, Satirical Poets, II, 215 (“Quem rota Fortunae 
transuexit ad astra repente’’), but cf. I, 307 (“Contrahat illa manum,” etc.); 
Carmina Burana, p. 47, \xxvil, stanzas 2, 3. 


4 Speculum Ecclesiae (Migne, vol. CLXXII, col. 1057, C). 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 053 


elaborate interpretation as this, even granted that Hono- 
rius could have understood him in this way. Moreover, 
there is nothing to show that Honorius conceives Fortune 
as turning the wheel in the way definitely described by 
Boethius and as commonly accepted by tradition. Yet 
the conception of Honorius 1s not without some followers. 
Wace writes: 
? Fortune trop par es muable, 
Tu ne pues estre un jor estable, 
Nus ne se doit en toi fier: 
Tant fais ta roe fort torner, 


Mult as tost ta color muée 
Tost es chaoite, tost levée. . . . 


Tost as un vilain halt levé 
Et un roi em plus bas torné.t 


In the Roman de la Rose Fortune “‘siet ot milieu comme 
avugle”;? in Chaucer and Lydgate she “‘turneth as a 
bal.” 3 

What are we to do in this quandary? Apparently we 
must consider that after the time of Boethius two tradi- 
tions were established, one in which Fortune turns the 
wheel, and one in which she herself is turned thereon. In 
the second figure she logically should have no control 
over the turns. 

In just this inconsistency, perhaps, lies the solution. 
In Honorius Fortune has no power over the wheel; in Wace 
she apparently has a borrowed control. The tradition 1s 
not direct, the ideas are not precisely the same. In Hono- 
rius Fortune revolves and her head goes where her feet 
should be; in Wace she simply rises and falls; in the Ro- 

* Roman de Brut, ll. 1965 ff. 


2 Line 5926. 
3 Chaucer, Truth, 1. 9; Lydgate, Troy Book, 1, 1506; ii, 2027. 


154 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


man de la Rose she is stationary; in Chaucer and Lydgate 
she revolves like a ball— the wheel-figure itself is not 
even presented. In other words, I do not think these pas- 
sages have enough points of contact to establish a tradi- 
tion. Wherever Honorius found his ideas, then, I do not 
think he got them from Boethius, nor do I think he passed 
them on to his successors. The writers following him 
chronologically seem to have original touches, introducing 
only a similar confusion of type and symbol. Lydgate is 
indebted to Chaucer, and Chaucer’s line certainly appears 
to take nothing from any of the other passages. 

The point, then, is this: that the main tradition from 
classical literature is the figure of Fortune turning her 
wheel, on which mankind and the estate of man depend, 
and that this idea has some actual beginnings in early 
Roman times. 


II 
THE MEDIAEVAL FIGURE 


Whatever meaning was originally attached to the 
wheel, or whichever of the gods was chiefly associated 
with it in ancient Rome, by the time of the Middle Ages 
it primarily belonged to Fortuna, as the preceding section 
of this chapter implies. We find it in portraits of her 
again and again.’ The 4wntyrs of Arthure refers to her as 


t See reference to a poem, “de rota Fortunae,” in Notices et Extraits, 
XXVIII,? 407, no. xii. See Gedicht auf die Zerstérung Mailands, \\. 24 fF; 
Bourdillon, Early Editions of the Roman de la Rose, p.110, § 40; Piaget, Martin 
le Franc, p. 178, n. 2; Nathaniel Hill, De Guileville, woodcut xvii (opposite 
p. xlv of Appendix), also colored drawing F (opposite p. xlii); Dan Michel, 
Ayenbite, p. 76; Durrieu, Boccace de Munich, plates ii, ix, xviii; Bocace des 
Nobles Maleureux, fol. xlvjv° (same as Hill’s woodcut xvii). See also notes on 
pp: 148 f., above. 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 156 


“that wondirfull whele-wryghte.” * Even the wheel itself 
takes over descriptive epithets and themes which com- 
monly belong to the goddess.? In literature, from the time 
of Boethius apparently, mankind was thought of as revolv- 
ing on the wheel itself; and, although such an idea was for- 
eign to Roman art, mediaeval drawings show actual men 
on the rim of the wheel turning at the will of the goddess.’ 

The wheel itself we may now consider as a special topic, 
and we shall study its treatment and the various ways in 
which it works. It may have two different meanings. 
First, there may be a vague, indefinite connection be- 
tween it and the objects bestowed by Fortune, — wealth, 
accident, and the like, — which it controls. As it turns, 
so man’s fortune changes;4 just how the change is 
brought about we are not informed, — merely, Fortune 
turns her wheel. Secondly, we learn that men are them- 


t Madden’s ed., st. xxi, 258; Wright, Re/iquiae Antiquae (1843), II, 8. 

2 See Faral, Recherches, p. 48, 1. 227 (“ Fortuna, crudelior asside surda”’); 
Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXXIV, lxxiv (‘‘la ruota instabile”’); Philippe de 
Beaumanoir, La Manekine, ll. 4639 ff. (Zeuvres, I, 144; notice the themes); 
Gower, Confessio Amantis, v,7445 (“blinde whiel”’), and Mirour de ?Omme, |. 
22100 (“‘roe ades muable”’); Chaucer, Knight’s Tale, A. 925, and Monk’s 
Tale, B. 3636 (“false wheel”); Lydgate, Temple of Glas, App. I (continuation 
of MSS., Schick’s ed., p. 63), 1. 363 (“double whel”’). 

3 This point in mediaeval art is observed by Galpin (Mod. Lang. Assoc., 
Publ., XXIV, 333), and by Wolff (Greek Romances in Elizabethan Prose Fic- 
tion, p. 387). 

4 See Saviozzo, Alcune Poesie Inedite, p. 30; Fazio d. Uberti, Liriche, p. 
253, ll. 47-48; Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 1863, pp. 86 (La Gios- 
tra, ii, st. 36), 361 (1. 133, ““De’ ben che la fortuna attorno gira”); Giov. 
Fiorentino, I/ Pecorone, II, 135 (xxii, 2); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xvii, 2; 
Roman de la Rose, \\. 6878-6880; Girart de Rossillon, \l. 447-448; Chaucer, 
Monk’s Tale, B. 3587-3588; Gower, Mirour de ?Omme, ll. 10942 ff., and Con- 
fessio Amantis, prol., 560 ff.; Lydgate, Troy Book, ii, 8561-8562; v, 2636. See 
the wheel of divination described by Forster in Herrig’s Archiv, CK XIX, 45- 
49 (§ 18, “Sphaera Apulei,” etc.). 


156 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


selves attached to the wheel; they are revolved with it, 
and so their estates change.’ 

A man may be on the highest point of Fortune’s wheel,’ 
and may yearn to stay there. Or he may feel that no- 
body else has ever suffered quite so much from the god- 
dess and reached so low a stage on her wheel — an idea 
founded on a widespread conviction, common particu- 
larly to romantic temperaments, that one’s own torture 
is unique in being greater than anybody else’s. Henricus 


t Poeti del Primo Secolo, 1, §15, and II, 329; Medin, Ballata della Fortuna, 
in J] Propugnatore, new ser., II (1889), 112 f.; Lorenzo de’ Medici, Poesie 
(1801), I, 169 (“Ventura,” etc.); Aeneas Sylvius, Opera Omnia, p. 761, B 
(“Hac conditione ascendimus”’); Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, X, xiv; Adam de 
la Halle, Feu de la Feuillée, \l. 788 ff.; Roman de Fauvel, \l. 78 ff.; Philippe de 
Beaumanoir, La Manekine, |. 4641 (Geuvres, I, 144, ““Tout le mont a sa roe 
tient”); Gorra, Studi (Thomas of Saluzzo, § vii), p. 76, “assis en haut de sa 
roe”; De Guilleville, Rommant des Trois Pelerinaiges, fol. \xvij; G. de Ma- 
chaut, Poésies, ed. Chichmaref, II, 312, ll. 104-106; Taillevent, Regime de 
Fortune, bal. iii (Alain Chartier’s Geuvres, p. 712, “Et puis les fiert de sa 
paulme en la ioe”); Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, I, 77 (“tourner a rebours”’); 
Gower, Confessio Amantis, vi, 292-293; vill, 1736-1737; and Mirour de 
l’Omme, ll. 21985 ff.; Lydgate, Siege of Thebes, ll. 1131-1134, 1148-1149; and 
Troy Book, i1, 2020 ff.; Sibbald, Chronicle, III, 477, 

That old blind Dame, delytes to let the joy 

Of all, such is her use, which dois convoy 

Her quheill by gess: not looking to the right, 
Bot still turnis up that pairt quhilk is too light. 


Cf. with this Boccaccio’s Amorosa Visione, cap. xxxi (Opere, XIV, 127, 
“Gravandomi di si noioso pondo”’). See drawings in Lydgate’s Falls of 
Princes, ed. 1554: at the end of the prologue one with five figures on the 
wheel; at fol. cxliii, one with seven figures on it. See plate 10, below. 

2 Boccaccio, Lettere (Opere, XVII), p. 118; Benivieni, Opere, p. 261”° 
(really 201°°; the climber cannot get higher); Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, xxv, 
275; Barbazan, Fadliaux, I, 139,1. 130 (“éu la roe haus”’); Jean de Condé, Dits 
et Contes, II, 347 (“Or le fera plus haut aler Que il ne fust onques d’assés”’); 
Lydgate, Troy Book, iv, 1751 (“higest prikke of Fortunys whele”); also 
Serpent of Division, p. 56, 1. 2 (“enhansed a man hieste upon hir whele”’), p. 
65, 1. 23 (“be hiest prikke of hir unstable whele”), and cf. p. 64, ll. 2-4. 

3 Boccaccio, Filocopo, ii (Opere, VII, 158-159). 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 157 


Septimellensis felt that he had suffered more than the rest 
of humanity, and the “ Manekine” likewise conceived her 
trials to be particularly great.t Sometimes Fortune turns 
one so exceedingly far down on the wheel that it will never 
be possible to rise again.” In fact, in one case we read: 


La miserabil fortuna che abbassato per li vostri inganni mi vede 
assai mi nuoce, e niuno aiuto mi porge, anzi s’ingegna con sollecitu- 
dine continua di mandarmi piv git che la pit infima parte della sua 
ruota, se far lo potesse, e quivi col calcio sopra la gola mi tiene, né 
possibile m’é lasciare il doloroso luogo.3 


Both these conceptions involve the idea that the wheel 
can stop. Boethius and those who take his doctrine have 
assured us that it is useless to attempt to stop it — that 
it revolves ceaselessly; 4 and yet we do find certain pas- 
sages where it seems to have paused or where there is an 
implication that it may pause on occasion.5 


t See Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, III, 195; IV, to. 

2 See Boccaccio, Filocopo, iii (Opere, VII, 254-256), 11 (ibid., 131-132, 
“piu infima parte della sua ruota”’), iv (#did., VIII, 202); Gower, Balades, xx, 
2 (Works, I, 354, ‘mon estat ne voi changer jammes’”’); Watriquet de Couvin, 
Dits, p. 214, ll. 498 ff. (Mireoirs aus Princes). 

3 Boccaccio, Filocopo, 111 (Opere, VII, 299). Cf. Boethius, Cons. Philos., II, 
met. i, 3 ff.; see the same idea in Benoit de Ste. Maure’s Roman de Troie, IV, 
ll. 25215 ff.; and cf. Froissart, Zuores, III, 213 (Trésor Amoureux, bal. iv, 5 ff.). 

4 Boethius, Cons. Philos., Il, pr. 1, 56-58; Wright, Satirical Poets, 1, 364 
(“fortuna lubrica nescit Mobilitas fixisse rotam”’); Roman de Fauvel, ll. 79- 
80 (“qui de tournier ne se terme’’); Poliziano, Le Stanze, etc., ed. Carducci, 
1863, p. 384 (implies that the wheel will never become stable); Masuccio, J/ 
Novellino, p. 439 (“chi é colui che possala . . . rota fermare?”’); Roman de la 
Rose, ll. 6432 ff., 6646 ff.; Lydgate, Assembly of Gods, |. 319 (“redy to turne 
without let’’); also his Beware of Doubleness, in Skeat’s Chaucerian and other 
Pieces, p. 292, ll. 41-42 (“goth round aboute A thousand tymes, day and 
night”); and his Serpent of Division, p. 66, 1. 26 (“so ofte turnith up and 
downe”’). 

5 Hildebert de Lavardin, De Infidelitate Fortunae (Migne, vol. CLXXI, 
col. 1424, A), ““Stante rota fortuna fauet”’; Sannazaro, Opere, p. 351 (son. 
xxvii, “Che le Rote stan ferme in suo vigore”’; cf. Boccaccio, Fi/ocopo, iv, 


158 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


But apparently the malign object of the goddess is ac- 
complished in other ways than by sinking her victim on 
the wheel; at least the expression describing her work is 
different. Thus, she may turn her wheel ¢he wrong way, a 
phrase which seems to explain the passages in which she 
is said to turn the wheel “against us,” “‘contrairement,” 


and so on.? 

Man himself also plays a part in the game. In Boe- 
thius, as we have seen, he is invited to ascend with the 
wheel; that is, he voluntarily submits to endure the turns 
of Fortune, hoping, it is implied, that he may somehow 
struggle to the top, or, arrived there, may manage to 
maintain his position. The Kingis Quair, for example, 
tells us: : 2 
For sothe it is, that, on hir tolter quhele, 

Euery wight cleuerith into his stage, 


And failyng foting oft, quhen hir lest, rele 
Sum vp, sum doune.? 


Opere, VIII, 110, “‘se la sua ruota stesse ferma”’); Renart le Nouvel (Roman du 
Renart, ed. Méon, IV, 457), ll. 8010 ff. (once mounted this king cannot be 
put down; the passage is quoted in Smith College Studies in Modern Lan- 
guages, 1V, 5); Awntyrs of Arthure, st. xxi, 253 (“‘whills be whele standis”’). 

t Of course, from one point of view any way except upward is the wrong 
way, and therefore the wheel may not be thought of as choosing a new path. 
See, however, Chrestien de Troyes, Roman du Chevalier de la Charrette, p. 174 
(‘‘m’as bistornée”; also in Philippe de Beaumanoir’s Manekine, |. 1085); 
Girart de Rossillon, |. 1308 (“contrairement”’); G. de Machaut, Poésies, ed. 
Chichmaref, I, 176, 1. 19 (“Sa roe vuet encontre moy tourner”’; cf. also II, 
312, ll. 104-106); Gower, Confessio Amantis, 1, 2624 (“the whiel is al mis- 
went”). In Cousin’s plate 117 the wheel is turning from right to left, instead 
of the usual way. Cf. plates 4 and 10 in this volume; also the wheel at 
Beauvais. 

2 Stanza 9; cf. st. 163. See, too, Boccaccio, Filocopo, 11 (Opere, VII, 158- 
1Sg, “quanto potré in alto mantenermi mi manterrd”’); Pucci, Poesia Popo- 
lare, ed. Ferri, p. 125, st. vii (let him who sits on the wheel beware lest he fall); 
Simund de Freine, Roman de Philosophie, ll. 303 ff. Cf. Furnivall, Political, 


PLATE 8 


SEVERAL WHEELS 


&) 


PLATE 9 


” 


éen la boe. 


as si get 


, 


tn m 


6 


] 


stanza 12, 


Pierre de la Broche, 


atte ‘ 7 : ; x . i . 


$e , ‘ : 1 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 159 


The wheel, then, in the Middle Ages means relative 
exaltation or humiliation in worldly dignity. It is turned 
by Fortune, and man is often actually attached to the 
rim, where he suffers the consequent changes of position. 
It may or may not stop, according to your own idea of the 
matter; it probably goes amiss somehow. But there seems 
to be a notion that it is your own fault if you suffer, be- 
cause you have a certain control over the question 
whether you will get on the wheel at all. 


III 
THEMES IN THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WHEEL 


Several themes in the description of the wheel have al- 
ready been suggested in the matters studied in the pre- 
ceding sections of this chapter: sometimes Fortune stands 
on the wheel; sometimes she is attached to it and re- 
volves with it; the wheel puts man’s affairs into good or 
bad condition; Fortune revolves man’s estate on the 
rim; the wheel may cease to move (or it expressly may 
not!); man may climb on it and may struggle to the top. 
But there are further developments of some of these ideas, 
which may now be briefly described. 

Clearly the most impressive trick of the wheel is to 
whirl a man from the top to the bottom. Man “falleth 
ofte unsofte,” and he is not likely to forget it. Concern- 
ing this act a particular riming formula which obtained 
some popularity came into vogue:. 

Religious, and Love Poems, pp. 265 (‘‘Ware the Wheel!”’), 266 (“‘3if pou be 
cointé, pou ssalt liue’’); Lydgate, Troy Book, i, 784 (“who clymbeth hy3ze may 
not falle softe”); Awntyrs of Arthure, st. xxi, 253 (“Maye no man stere hy of 


strengthe, whills be whele standis’’). 
t Lydgate, The Churl and the Bird, st. 30. 


160 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Sire, mains gentius hom seoit ier sor la roe, 
qui por le votre mort est ceus en le boe.z 


A man is now on top of the wheel and then below in the 
mud. Since the wheel is regarded as standing upright, 
generally with the lower part of the rim near the ground, 
this figure need not include the idea of one’s being cast off 
by centrifugal force. Even in such a line as the following, 


Et m’as si geté en la boe,? 


the idea of one’s being entirely thrown off from the rim of 
the wheel is not stated definitely; * the meaning seems to 
be merely that one is in about as disagreeable a position 
as the device can offer. It may be regarded, however, as 
a step in the direction of the centrifugal idea. 

The figure of the wheel’s casting a man into the mud is 
carried even farther in this and Prophilias, where we 


t Alexandre de Bernay, Li Romans d’ Alixandre, ed. Michelant, p. 522, ll. 
2-3. This is the earliest instance of the use of this formula that I can find. 
Galpin (Mod. Lang. Assoc., Pub/., XXIV, 334) gives the history of the roe- 
boe rime. See also Rutebeuf, @wores (1874), 1, 105, ll. 33-37; Romanz de la 
Poire, \l. 37-40; Roman de la Rose, \l. 3998-3999, 4910-4911, and (idid., IV, 
33-34) Jean de Meun’s Testament, ll. 652-655; Sieper, Les Echecs Amoureux, 
p- 85; Galpin, in Mod. Lang. Notes, XXIX, 62-63; Pierre de la Broche (Mon- 
merqué and Michel, Thé@tre Francais, p. 211, st. 3). A variant of the rime 
roe-boe is the rime roe-moe: see Philippe de Beaumanoir, Fehan et Blonde, \l. 
2509-2510 (Ceuores, Il, 79); Pierre de la Broche, as above; Girart de Rossillon, 
ll. 447-448; Froissart, Géuores, III, 213 (Irésor Amoureux, bal. iv, 5 ff.); 
Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., 1,917; Li Romanz de la Poire, ll. 9-52; Montaiglon’s 
Recueil de Poésies Frangoises, p. 84; Le Petit Traittiet du Malheur de France 
(appended to Pierre Michault’s Dance aux Aveugles), p. 233; and cf. Chaucer 
Troilus and Criseyde, iv, 6-7. 

2 Pierre de la Broche, as above. See also Le Dit del’ Emperear Coustant, ed. 
Wesselofsky, in Romania, V1, 162, ll. 23 ff.; and cf. the Italian ruota-mota, in 
Benivieni’s Dela Vanita I. pecan (Ooern pasarey 

3 See, however, Henryson, The Paddok and the Mous, \. 171, ‘Now on the 
quheill, now wrappit to the ground.” 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 161 


read that the man is plunged very deep — “Tost le re- 
trebuche an l’abisme.’”’* Baudouin de Condé gives us a 
vivid picture of a similar scene rather more developed: 
In the tower of Love’s prison stands Fortune, turning a wheel of 
four spokes. The spokes on high uphold the lords of the world, the 


lower part of the wheel supports those who are worth nothing at all 
Those on high have success in love: 


Li autres rais si aval baisse, 

Ke jusk’en la cartre s’abaisse, 
La 0 cil sunt qui n’ont d’amours 
Fors les travaus et les dolors. 


The wheel turns about, putting some on high and others low: 


Les autres torne contreval 
En la prison, t li traval 
Et les grans paines sunt d’amours. 


The prison below is a gloomy place, dark for want of the light 
which love spreads. Serpents, whose bite is desire, breed there.? 
In this account the wheel sends its victims down into the 
prison; at least, they are turned there on the surface of the 
wheel, although they seem to have a chance of getting out 
again.’ Baudouin tells us that one comes to Fortune and 
voluntarily climbs on the wheel,‘ whereupon the individ- 
ual is in danger of the prison. 

A description of remarkable similarity, close enough 
indeed to suggest actual influence, is found in the Kingzis 
Quair of James I of Scotland, whose narrative runs as 
follows: 


The author went to Fortune and found her waiting beside her 
big wheel, to which a multitude of folk were clinging. 


t Line 1979. Cf. Jubinal, Contes, Dits, etc., 1, 196, ‘‘Demain sera getez en 
la terre parfonde.” 

2 Li Prisons d’ Amours, \l. 839 ff. (Dits et Contes, I, 297-308). 

3 Lines 1065 ff. a Seedlr 1027 ff. 


162 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


And vnderneth the quhelé sawe I there 
An vgly pit, as depe as ony helle, 

That to behald thereon I quoke for fere; 
Bot o thing herd I, that quho there-in fell 
Come no more vp agane, tidingis to telle. 


The wheel was slippery: many failed in their footing and were 
rolled to the ground. Some were too sore to climb again, others 
Fortune picked up safe and sound. A new swarm filled the empty 
places. Fortune called the author by name, bidding him climb on 
the wheel; and he must be quick about it, for time was passing. 


Here the author seeks Fortune concerning affairs of love, 
as the chief figure does in Baudouin’s poem; the wheel is 
practically a wheel of love, and the author succeeds in his 
suit, ““thankit be Fortunys exiltree.” Some do not rise 
again after their fall, but others Fortune is prevailed upon 
to assist; all voluntarily climb on the wheel; and, most 
important of all, beneath the wheel is a pit. 

Other suggestions for the picture of Fortune as given 
in the Quair and the Prisons d’ Amours are to be found 
in some versions of the Mort d’ Arthur, and perhaps in 
these lines of the twelfth-century Cursor Mundi : 


Dame fortune turnes pan hir quele 
And castes vs dun vntil a wele.? 


t See the Quair, stanzas 159 ff. For discussion of the sources of this idea, 
see Lawson’s introduction, pp. Ix ff., and for its influence see p. Ixxiv; but his 
suggestions do not account for the most important element, the pit. 

2 Lines 23719-23720. Cf. the descriptions in the stanzaic Morte Arthur, 
ll. 3168 ff., and Malory’s Morte Darthur, book xxi, ch. iii. The French Mort 
Artu (ed. J. D. Bruce, Halle, 1910) p. 220, has a different account; also the 
alliterative Morte Arthure, ll. 3250 ff. See Bruce’s note, Mort Artu, p. 291. 
The wheel in the Alexandrian fragment of Cassamus, or Les Voeux du Paon 
(ed. Rosskopf, p. 69, 1. 405), is connected with lovers, but there is no pit; 
nor is there any in Skeat’s edition of Alexander’s Wars (Early English Text 
Soc., Extra Series, No. 47, p. 104), although here there are flood-gates and © 
drenching. The idea of the pit appears again, however, in Painter’s trans- 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 163 


Here, to be sure, there is a chance of recovery for a time, 
till Death claims one. In art, however, there is a familiar 
representation of a wheel with a grave or a coffin beneath 
it,t and perhaps this idea alone, often found in pictures of 
Fortune, was enough to suggest the figure of the pit. 

The idea of the centrifugal action might easily have 
been suggested by the roulette or by other actual uses of 
the wheel in real life. But the truth is that this concep- 
tion does not play a large part in literature,? and herein 
the Quair shows about the closest approach to a use of 
the figure. How successful and moving the scene is in 
King James’s poem may be gathered from the inspiration 
the lines offered to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who took over 
the theme and plan for his King’s Tragedy. Rossetti’s 
most powerful passages are those recounting Fortune’s 
work. The poem leads to a sublime climax of emotion, 
and strikes its final note in the lines, 


lation of Boaistuau’s French paraphrase of Romeo e Giulietta (New Shak- 
spere Soc., Series 3, I, 111): 

“And thus a month or twayne, they continued their joyful mindes, to 
their incredible satisfaction, until Lady fortune enuious of their prosperity, 
turned hir Wheele to tumble them into sutch a bottomlesse pit, as they payed 
hir vsury for their pleasures past, by a certayne most cruell and pitifull death.” 

On the pit, see Post’s Sources of Fuan de Mena, in Romanic Review, II, 
243-245. 

t See Boll, Die Lebensalter, cut opposite p. 144 (Abb. 4), date circa 1461; 
Weinhold, Glicksrad und Lebensrad, tafel ii; Heider, Mitteilungen, p. 117; 
and p. 173, below. Note the wheel with the inscription ““Omnia mors tollit,” 
Heider, op. cit., p. 114. Cf. E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts, 
Paris and Brussels, 1926, pl. 54. 

2 The use of the wheel in Les Echecs Amoureux does not involve the cen- 
trifugal figure. For discussion of this point, see Mod. Lang. Notes, XXIX, 
197. For centrifugal force, see Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, iv, 6, “whan 
a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe”’; Lydgate’s Daunce of Machabree, prol., 
st. 2, “Fortune hath them from her whele ytrow; and his Siege of Thebes, |. 
890, “From her wheel she plongéd hym a-doun.”’ 


164 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


Through the dusk where the white face lay 
In the Pit of Fortune’s Wheel. 


So much may be said for the motion of Fortune’s 
wheel; now for the figures attached to it. The most com- 
mon conception, perhaps because it seems the simplest 
and most natural, and perhaps because it may therefore 
be the oldest, is that of the wheel with four human figures 
on the rim. This theme is so definitely marked that it 
deserves special study. 

Since it seems likely that the idea originated in art 
from its peculiarly visual quality, I shall give a typical 
example taken from a mediaeval drawing. On the top 
of the wheel is a crowned youth sitting on a throne and 
holding a sceptre; at the right is a figure falling, his 
crown dropping from his head; at the bottom is a figure 
prostrate; on the left is a man climbing, extending his 
hands toward the youth at the top. The figures are in- 
scribed respectively, Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine Regno, 
and Regnabo. This picture is exceedingly familiar in 
mediaeval art.2 In one of Boccaccio’s descriptions of 

* Works, 1888, I, 172. 

2 See Carmina Burana, p. 1; Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen Age, 
Album, vol. IT, ser. 8, pl. 30 (also in Molinier’s Manuscrits et Miniatures, p. 
291), and ser. 4, plates 38, 39; Bibliotheca Casinensis, IV, 83, nos. 145, 146 
(at the middle of the circle is inscribed “‘Prosperitas Adversitas”; cf. the 
use of these names above, p. 143); Durrieu, Boccace de Munich, planches it, 
ix, xvili; Didron, Annales Archéol., XVI, 338, plate; Gregor Reisch, Marga- 
rita Philosophica, lib. viii, cap. xvi, plate (inscribed Glorior Elatus, Descendo 
Mortificatus, Axi Rotor, — figure supine, — Ad Alta Vehor; and cf. similar 
inscriptions on the title-page of the 1539 German translation of De Remediis, 
noted in Fiske’s Bibliographical Notices, III, p. 34, §69); Barbier de Montault, 
Traité, I, pl. x (opp. p. 160), no. 102; Bourdillon, Early Editions of the Roman 
de la Rose, p. 110, § 40 (see Liber Fortunae described by Lingfors in Ro- 


mania, XLV, 265 ff.). For discussion and many references, see Weinhold, 
Ghicksrad und Lebensrad, pp. 10 ff. Wackernagel (“Giicksrad und die Kugel 


PLATE I0 


BOCCACCIO AND FORTUNE 


* 


* 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 166 


Fortune we read: “I saw men climbing the wheel by 
their wits, and arrived at the top they said, ‘I reign.’ 
Others, failing, seemed to say, ‘I am without reign.’”! In 
another place the “formula of four,” as we may call this 
theme, gives the topics and titles to a series of poems, be- 
ginning with a speech by Fortune and then proceeding 
with a monologue by each of the four figures: 


Fortuna. —I am that Fortuna who has made and unmade 
kings and emperors. It is of no avail to worship me. Let him be- 
ware who sits at the top of the wheel. Let each hold fast to his 
treasure. | 

Recno. — I reign at the top of the wheel, as Fortune has des- 
tined me. But if the wheel turns I may be deprived of power. Be 
moderate, ye who are in power, lest you fall to earth. Behold the 
honor I am paid because I sit at the top of the wheel. 

Recnavi. —I reigned for a while, then Fortune put me down 
and deprived me of everything good. Her friendship avails not. 
No friend remains when a man falls. Do not be confident when you 
are rising; Fortune makes you fall with deadly blows. Hearken to 
my case, how I gained and lost this honor. 

Recnazso. —I shall reign if Fortune pleases and the wheel 
turns to the fourth place. I shall be above and rule all the world. 
How great is my pleasure then! Virtue moves me to speak such 
words, because I plan to do justice and punish those who have 
maliciously robbed the men of good estate. What joy I shall have 
to be able to punish them! 

Sum sinE Recno. —I am, as you see, without reign, down low 
in wretchedness. Fortune has disclaimed me. If I should mount 


des Gliicks,” in his Kleinere Schriften, 1, 251 f.) relates the four-formula to 
the four quarters of the moon; with this idea cf. Novati’s Carmina Medii 
Aevi, p. 44, st. vi. See the peculiar variation, with a crowned ass on top of 
the wheel, in Catalogue des Livres de Rothschild, 1, 255 (title-page of the 1506 
ed. of Martin le Franc’s Lestrif de Fortune et de Vertu). Cf. Brant’s Narren- 
schiff, ed. Simrock, pp. 85, 129 (figure at the left with human head, falling); 
and see Bergner, Handbuch der Kirchlichren Kunstaltertiimer in Deutschland, 
p. 584. Note the frontispiece and plates 5 and 11 in the present volume. 
* Amorosa Visione, cap. xxxi (Opere, XIV, 126). 


166 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


on this wheel, every man would be friendly to me. Let each take 
warning who considers me: 


Appresso de Iesu ella é unita 
Questa cattiva che nel foco arda, 
E sta tanto sentita, 


Dando et tollendo ove piu li pare 
Tal gratia li ha voluto dio donare.? 


The formula is adapted to a dramatic use in the 
Mystere de Bien-Advisé et Mal-Advisé, where we see the 
figures acting parts: 


Bien-Advisé and Mal-Advisé, after meeting and consulting with 
Franche-Volonté, and after visiting the house of Raison and call- 
ing on Foy, become separated. Mal-Advisé travels with Folie, 
Hoquélerie, and so on. Presently, however, the two men meet at 
the house of Fortune. Mal-Advisé wishes to try the wheel, but 
Fortune makes him retire in favor of four men in whom she is in- 
terested — Regnabo, Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine Regno. These 
figures climb on the wheel, and after successive turns Fortune takes 
Regnavi and Sine-Regno and “‘les precipite de sa Rotie’”’; where- 
upon “‘ces deux personages se voyans sans espoir d’y remonter, 
vomissent mille injures contre cette inconstante.”’ Nothing abashed, 
Fortune takes Regnabo and Regno under her protection, while 
Bien-Advisé advises the two left despairing to go to Confession. 
Meanwhile Fortune, after some diversion in revolving Regno and 
Regnabo on the wheel, makes them fall also. The Vices take 
them to Malle-Fin, from whom they are conducted to the torments 
of demons. The two good disciples who have confessed go to 
Bonne-Fin and are turned over to Penitence, who, after beating 
them with rods, leads them to Paradise and the awaiting angels.? 


Such is the dramatic and literary use of the formula of 
four. Besides these treatments, we have occasional brief 
allusions to the theme elsewhere in literature. 

1 Alcune Poesie Inedite del Saviozzo et di altri autori, ed. G. Ferraro, pp.51 ff. © 

2 Fréres Parfaict, Thédtre Francois, Il, 113 ff. 

3 See Gorra, Studi, pp. 57-59 (MS. fr. 12460, Bibl. Nat., year 1345); Fur- 


nivall, Political, Religious, and Love Poems, p. 251; Frezzi, Quadriregio, 1, 149, 
ll. 4 ff.; Gower, Vox Clamanitis, 11, 155. 


THE FOUR FIGURES 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 167 


There is a peculiar variation of the wheel with human 
beings attached to it, in which we find a human figure 
not lying on the periphery but stretched across the face. 
Fortune takes over Ixion’s wheel and Ixion along with it. 
Honorius of Autun, after describing the wheel on which, 
according to the report of the philosophers, Fortune is 
tied, continues: 


Dicunt etiam quod quidam apud inferos damnatus per radios 
rotae sit diuaricatus; quae rota sine intermissione ab alto montis 
in ima uallis feratur et iterum alta repetens denuo relabatur.? 


This is in close relation to his discussion of Fortune’s 


wheel. Walter Map goes still farther: 


Ixion i1bi uoluitur in rota. Nec hic desunt Ixiones, quos uolu- 
bilitas torquet fortunae. Ascendunt ad gloriam, ruunt in miseriam. 


Habemus et nos Ixiones, quos sorte sua uolubilis fortune tor- 
quet.3 


In Frezzi’s Quadriregio Ixion suffers on one of the seven 
wheels of Fortune there conceived: 


Colui, che su e git ha tante doglie, 
E’Ission’, ed ha tal penitenza, 
Che volle a Giove gia toglier la moglie.4 


It is not strange, then, that in Henryson’s Orpheus and 
Eurydice Ixion’s wheel takes over many of the character- 
istics of the symbol of Fortune.® 


t See Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaulois, pp. 44 ff. 
2 Speculum Ecclesiae (Migne, vol. CLXXII, col. 1057, C). 
3 De Nugis Curialium, ed. Wright, pp. 6, 239 (written before 1189). These 
references were given to me by Professor James Hinton of Emery College. 
4 I, 149-150. Noted by Post, “Sources of Juan de Mena,” in Romanic 
Review, III, 229 and n. 22. 
5 See ll. 261 ff.; notice 475 ff., and cf. 485-488, 
That warldly men sumtyme ar castin hie 
Apon the quhele, in grete prosperitee, 


168 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 
IV 


OTHER MEDIAEVAL CONCEPTIONS OF 
FortTune’s WHEEL 


We have thus far observed some of the more common 
themes, all of which depend on the idea that Fortune’s 
wheel revolves mankind either on its circumference or on 
its face; but there are conceptions which give it other 
activities or possibilities. —The wheel, to be sure, may still 
revolve the fortunes of mankind or may turn man himself 
from top to bottom, but it accomplishes such changes in 
a slightly different way and generally with added sym- 
bolism. 


And wyth a quhirl, unwarly or thai witte, 
Ar thrawin doun to pure and law estate, 


with Walter Map’s “Ascendunt ad gloriam, ruunt in miseriam,” quoted 
above. See, too, Brant’s Narrenschiff, ed. Zarncke, p. 57, § 56, ll. 48-52 (cf. 
Simrock’s ed., p. 129 ff.): 

Ixion blibt syn rad nit stan 

Dann es loufft vmb, von wynden kleyn 

Sellig, wer hofft jnn gott alleyn, 

Er fellt, vnd blibt nit jn der hoh 

Der steyn. 


The idea of men tied to the wheel or broken on it is suggested in Boccaccio’s 
Amorosa Visione, cap. xxv (Opere, XIV, 102), and in Sannazaro’s Opere, p. 
387. Cf. Cousin’s plate (No. 17), where an old man with wings is lying on the 
rim of the wheel. For figures attached to a wheel (not Fortune’s) in the In- 
ferno, see late references in Marie de France’s Espurgatoire Saint Patriz, ll. 
1121 ff.; De Guilleville’s Pelerinage de I’ Ame, Roxburghe Club, ll. 4873 ff. (a 
devil turns this “‘wheel of torment,” the figure at the top is whirled down and 
his head is dashed at the bottom), $309 ff. (“two strong Satans” turn this 
wheel); A. van Staveren’s 4uctores Mythographi, 1742, frontispiece (cf. above, 
p- 131, n. 2); Petit de Julleville’s Histoire de la Littérature Francaise, Moyen 
Age, II, 416-417, plate representing the stage-setting for the Passion play at 
Valenciennes, 1547 (MS. fr. 12536, Bibl. Nat.). 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 169 


For example, the wheel is sometimes figured as having 
a course on which it turns. Perhaps this means only that 
it goes “round and round”; but when we read of its 
changing this course we must understand either that it 
goes backwards or that it travels on a special road and 
selects a new path.* We do find an apparent reference to 
the road: 


Perché mentre girato sei dal dorso 

Di ruota per allor felice e buona, 

La qual cangia le volte a mezzo il corso. 
E, non potendo tu cangiar persona, 

Né lasciar l’ordin, di che il ciel ti dota, 

Nel mezzo del cammin la t’abbandona. 
Pero, se questo si comprende e nota, 

Sarebbe un sempre felice e beato, 

Che potesse saltar di ruota in ruota.? 


Here the wheel becomes for all practical purposes a wheel 
of travel, a vehicle. Moreover, — and this leads to our 
next topic, — several wheels of Fortune are sometimes 
mentioned. 


t See Lydgate, Beware of Doubleness, in Skeat’s Chaucerian and other 
Pieces, p. 292, ll. 43-44 (“ Whos cours standeth ever in doute For to trans- 
mew’’); Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, 1, 138 ff. Cf. p. 158 above. 

2 Machiavelli, Capitolo di Fortuna (Opere, VII, 369; and see 368, “‘con 
tante ruote’’). 

3 For the wheel as a vehicle, see Roman de la Rose, ll. 6168-6171; Galpin, 
Roman de la Rose, pp. 340 f. See also Sannazaro, Opere, p. 379, 

Rota par che vi affide; 
E vi spiani dinanzi e fossi, e monti; 


Gower, In Praise of Peace (Works, III, 481 ff.), ll. 115-116, 


The werre hath set his cart on thilke whieles 
Wher that fortune mai noght be believed. 


See Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaulois, p. 58, the wheel of Fortuna Redux. Cf. Perceval 
le Gallois, 1, 80 (prose, twelfth century): “Li chevaliers qu’ele moine aprés lui 
sénéfie la roe de fortune; car, tout autresint conme li chars vet sor les roueles, 
demoinne ele le siécle aus II damoiseles qui la suivent.” 


170 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


In the Roman de Fauvel good and bad Fortune are 
symbolized, with the usual mediaeval concreteness and 
complexity, by two wheels, one fast and the other slow, 
within each of which is another small wheel that has a 
contrary movement. All four “font l’estat du monde 
tourner.”’* Frezzi introduces a further complication by 
conceiving seven great wheels, “come spere in questo 
Mondo.” The fourth is taller than the rest and reaches 
up to Jove; those on each side are decreasingly smaller. 
On the wheels are various characters, those aloft rejoicing 
in happiness, those below suffering disaster.? 

So much for the mechanism of the wheel, with the 
usual symbolism of its control over the casual affairs of life 
or over the figures of men themselves. But the wheel was 
held to have power, not only over man’s worldly affairs, 
but also over his spiritual condition. Thus, a figure might 


1 See Langfors’s ed., ll. 1931-1940; and the summary in Gorra’s Studi, pp. 
55-56. For two wheels see pl. 9 in the present volume. Cf. the three wheels 
in Juan de Mena: Post, “Sources of Juan de Mena,” Romanic Review, III, 
225. Perhaps the suggestion for several wheels comes from a natural com- 
parison of the wheel of Fortune to the earth (see, e. g., Wright, Satirical 
Poets, I, 39, “ut rota mundus; Quippe uolubilis, et uariabilis, ac ruibundus’’) 
and then to the spheres. See Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore, ii, 49, and xxii, 38, 
where it is hard to tell what “le volubil rote” means. 

? Quadriregio, I, 148 (lib. 11, cap. xili, 13 ff.). Ixion (cf. p. 167 above) is on 
the fastest wheel; Rienzo Tribuno on the second; Bernabé of Milan is on the 
third, and his nephew on another. See also, in Guillaume de Machaut’s 
Livre du Voir-Dit, pp. 333-334 and note, the four little circles within a great 
one, round which is written, “‘Affluo, discedo, talis ludus cui me do.” The. 
poem gives the inscriptions on all the other circles, and says of the fifth or 
surrounding one, which “‘met tout a destruccion,” 

Et vescy la droite escripture 

Que Tytus Livius figure: 
Pense & regarde qui je sui, 
Quant tu le saras hé-m’ & fui. 


This wheel is reproduced in plate 8 above. 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 171 


be filled with pride at the top of the wheel, but later at the 
bottom feel correspondingly humble, the two estates of 
pride and humiliation being caused by the frame on which 
he is turning.’ Buti gives us an interesting wheel, which is 
worth reproducing here to show one elaboration of this 
idea :? 


Apparently the qualities on the right side of this wheel 
would be at the highest part according to most concep- 
tions, since pride comes at the supreme moment of 
achievement;* but in Buti’s figure the highest point 
seems to be actually between Pazienza and Pace,‘ and, 
falling, one drops first into that dangerous kind of peace 


t See Le Roman du Renart, ed. Méon, I, p. x (Orgueil and Guille near the 
top of the wheel, apparently representing the estate of Renard while he sits in 
* power). 

2 Commento sopra la Divina Commedia, 1, 214. See also Vernon, Readings 
on the Inferno of Dante, 1, 246. 

3 Cf. Cousin, Livre de Fortune, pl. 119, in which the inscriptions, marking 
six appropriate figures, run round the wheel thus, beginning at the top: “Ex 
Divitiis Superbia, Ex Superbia Bellum, Ex Bello Paupertas, Ex Paupertate 
Humilitas, Ex Humilitate Pax, Ex Pace Divitiae.” 

4 Cf. ibid., pl. 93, ‘Fortunae Patizntia Victrix.” 


rhe THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


or composure which may go farther — into an excess of 
luxury. This is a distinctly original touch. The wheel, as 
usual, revolves clock-wise, and here the idea of unlimited 
revolutions is perfectly conceivable. One might regard it 
as a wheel analyzing the range of experience in a certain 
kind of human life. The moral question is not introduced. 

In other wheels, however, we do find a reference to the 
moral question. People rise to their proud positions by 
fraud, but they always fall again. Virtue is necessary to 
keep one’s position: 


Tout adés fermement s’i tient 

Ki aime Diu et carité, 

Et a de son proisme pité; 

Car qui sagement s’1 avise, 

Cele roe que on devise, 
N’est sans plus que cis morteus mondes.? 


Or sometimes the wheel, like the similar figure in the 
Orphic mysteries, is a wheel of monotonous, whirling 
durance, submission to which is caused by too much con- 
cern in worldly interests and from which one would fain 


escape: 
Puisqu’ homme est a sa dure rouhe 
Englué par concupiscence, 
I] peut aussytost choir en bouhe, 
Qu’estre eslevé en audience: 
Et ny a point de difference 
Du bas au hault; car ille est ronde, 
Et tourne sur ung gond le monde. 


* Renart le Nouvel, in Méon’s edition of Le Roman du Renart, IV, 459, 
note, Il. 13 ff. (“C’est roe de dampnation”). See Smith College Studies in 
Modern Languages, IV, 5, where the whole passage is quoted. Cf. the Petit 
Traittiet du Malheur de France, appended to Pierre Michault’s Dance aux 
Aveugles, pp. 233 f. 2 Renart le Nouvel, ll, 26-31. 

3 Pierre Michault, La Dance aux Aveugles, p. 100. For the relation of 
Avarice to Fortune, see Baudouin de Condé, Dits et Contes, 1, 34. Cf. the 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 173 


Wheels of worldly “‘concupiscence”’ are perhaps repre- 
sented by any of the wheels on which the worldly estate 
of man changes.* The logical end of immorality, follow- 
ing its lowest estate, is death; and so we come to the 
wheels which show us a grave or a coffin below, and in- 
deed we find some turned by Death himself.2. This kind 
no longer belongs to Fortune, though it is a possible de- 
velopment from hers, as she rules Death. It is, however, 
concerned not with the idea of morality or immorality, — 
there is usually no succession of moral stages through 
which man passes,— but with the typical periods or 
“ages” of his life. In art there are several wheels with 
the seven ages definitely marked; * perhaps it was such a 


idea in Les Echecs Amoureux discussed in Modern Language Notes, XXX 
(1914), 197; and cf. the wheel of Sensual Desire in De Guilleville’s Rommant 
des Trois Pelerinaiges, fol. xlij V° f. 

t See the “formula of four” above, pp. 164 ff.; also Weinhold, Ghicksrad 
und Lebensrad, p. 15 (Honor, Prosperitas, Paupertas, Adversitas). Barbier 
de Montault (Traité, 1, 163, § 3) describes the wheel of human life at Beau- 
vais with twelve persons on it, one at the top, five climbing, five falling, and a 
prone figure at the bottom. The one at the top offers one hand to help those 
who are ascending and pushes with his sceptre those who are falling. See 
three figures on the wheel: Didron, Annales Archaeol., 1, 433 f. (Bibl. Amiens, 
MS. 216); also idid., plate opposite p. 422. 

2 See Fiske’s Bibliographical Notices, III, 38, § 77 (German translation of 
De Remediis, 1637); Weinhold, Glicksrad und Lebensrad, p. 24, and tafel 11 
(here Death turns the wheel); Tommaso Pischedda, Canti Popolari, p. 37 
(“E ti spalanca — Un negro avel”’); also see the wheel of the seven ages, just 
below. Cousin’s plate of “Ultima Fortuna” (Livre de Fortune, pl. 199) repre- 
sents Fortune and Death hurrying on together with a wheel between them; 
Death’s hand is on the wheel and Fortune’s is on his arm. See also Du Som- 
merard’s plate 40, described on page 120, n. 1, above; and cf. pp. 117 ff. 

3 See Heider, Mitteilungen, p. 117. On the relation of the ages to the 
planets and the seven deadly sins, see Boll’s Lebensalter (and, incidentally, 
see the seven circles of the seven planets on Fortune’s three wheels in Juan 
de Mena, Post’s “‘ Sources,” p. 225). See Green, Shakespeare and the Emblem 
Writers, pl. 15 (same as Boll’s pl. 3, opposite p. 144), and pp. 406-409; cf. 


174 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


picture that Jacques had in mind in his famous speech. 
If we were expected to imagine that the wheel of the seven 
ages turned more than once, we might see in it a resem- 
blance to the Buddhistic “wheel of life,” with its succeed- 
ing revolutions standing for successive lives of mankind 
in just such a wheel of durance as we find in the Orphic 
mysteries.’ But we are not justified, I think, in believing 
that the Middle Ages imagined a turn beyond the final 
state of death. 

These, then, are the various new interpretations and 
constructions of the wheel. I believe it is always For- 
tune’s symbol, whether borrowed for the time being or 
not. Now it apparently serves as a vehicle whirling on a 
course of its own; again, it is attached to a more elaborate 
mechanism; or it becomes doubled or tripled, and perhaps 
even generates a sevenfold engine on which humanity 
turns. It revolves man’s feelings as well as his social 
status; and either this wheel or one like it turns man from 
the cradle to the grave — a conception of the “wheel of 


Weinhold, Gliicksrad und Lebensrad, tafel 11 (nine figures on the wheel). On 
the entire subject, see, besides Boll and Green, Weinhold’s Gliicksrad, pp. 
21 ff., and Barbier de Montault’s Traité, 1, 163, § 4. 

* See L. Austine Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, pp. 102 ff., where the 
twelfth stage of the wheel (see p. 110) is “ Decay and Death.” It is interesting 
to compare the other stages with the wheel of ‘‘ Pazienza” and “Pace” (p. 171 
above): (1) Unconscious Will; (2) Conformations; (3) Consciousness; (4) 
Self-consciousness; (5) Sense-surfaces and Understanding; (6) Contact; (7) 
Feeling; (8) Desire; (9) Indulgence; (10) Fuller Life; (11) Birth of Heir; (12) 
Decay and Death; then back to (1) Unconscious Will. In the centre of the 
wheel are often figured a serpent, a cock, and a pig in pursuit of each other 
round the wheel, symbolizing ill-will, lust, and stupidity. For the relation of 
the wheel to the Orphic cycle, see Waddell, p. 109, n. 2. For Orphism and the 
wheel, see Jane E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion 
(Cambridge, 1908), pp. 588 ff., with the inscription (pp. 588, 669), “I have 
flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel.” 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 175 


life” which seems more likely to come from the symbol of 
Fortune’ than from any external source like the Buddhis- 
tic figure. Thus Fortune’s wheel assumes no small im- 
portance in the thought of man’s existence.? 


V 
SUMMARY 


In a review of the development of Fortune’s wheel in 
the mediaeval period, six important points are made 


* Boll derives this wheel from Fortune’s: his two plates both show the 
goddess. 

2 A few references to other wheels, which I have collected by chance in my 
study, may be of use to some other investigator of the subject: 

For the wheel of God, with the rim controlled by Fate, see Boethius, Cons. 
Philos., 1V, pr. vi (with the rim transferred to Fortune in Les Echecs Amou- 
reux, see Mod. Lang. Notes, XXIX} 197; see the wheel of Fate in Petrarch’s 
Bucolicum Carmen, p. 141, ecl. x, 1.15, and in his Africa, 11, 293). Cf. the 
wheel with Christ on it, Gaidoz, Le Dieu Gaulois, pp. 83-84. For the wheel of 
God in general, see Elizabeth of Schénau’s description (Migne, vol. CXCV, 
col. 136; and cf. Ezekiel i, 15-17; x, 9-10): 

Vidi non procul ab eis duos arietes, grandes, et praeclaros, ante signum 
crucis, et sustinentes in humeris suis rotam nimiae claritatis, et mirae magni- 
tudinis. His omnibus ita perspectis, in haec uerba prorupi dicens: ‘‘Leuate 
oculos cordis uestri ad deificum lumen; attendite et uidete gloriam, et ma- 
iestatem Domini.” 

One recalls the three rings of three colors symbolizing the Trinity in 
Dante’s Paradiso. A wheel of fire is described by Friedrich Vogt in Wein- 
hold’s Zeitschrift des Vereins fiir Volkskunde (Berlin, 1893), II], 349 ff.; for its 
relation to the wheel of Fortune, see pp. 368-369. 

For the wheel of the sun among the Gauls, see Alexandre Bertrand, Nos 
Origines: La Religion des Gaulois, les Druides et le Druidisme (Paris, 1897), 
pp. 185 ff., and see pl. xxii. For the wheel of Saint Katherine, see Lydgate’s 
Minor Poems, ed. MacCracken, I, 122 (1. 59), 134 (J. 19), and, for an Easter 
wheel, 377. The wheel of Desire moderated by the wheel of Temperance is 
described by Froissart, L’Orloge Amoureus (Guvres, 1, 59); the wheel of Vic- 
tory in the Sguyr of Lowe Degre, ed. E. W. Mead, |. 258; the wheel of the law, 
with a thousand spokes symbolizing the symmetry and completeness of the 
law, by Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, p. 389 (for pictures of it, see pp. 


134, 337). 


176 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


clear: (1) In classical literature the wheel is intimately 
connected with the changes of man’s estate. (2) In 
Boethius we have practically a beginning of the two 
great conceptions, (4) Fortune turning the wheel, (0) 
mankind actually on the rim. (3) The tradition after 
Boethius, starting in the twelfth century, gives us chiefly 
the figure we find in his portrayal. (4) Throughout the 
Middle Ages the general idea is that Fortune turns the — 
wheel, on which mankind clings; in the line of this de- 
velopment occurs the “formula of four.” (5) There is 
another tradition showing various figures attached to the 
face of the wheel, among them Fortune herself and Ixion. 
(6) A perversion of the wheel-figure culminates in the 
“wheel of life” or the “wheel of the seven ages,” ap- 
parently because Fortune’s wheel seemed to dominate in 
every phase of human life. 

The wheel as a symbol should be dwelt upon particu- 
larly because it is so mediaeval in its conception. The 
mediaeval imagination was primarily concrete: it neces- 
sarily visualized the symbol as an actual image with the 
real figures of men turning upon it. Nor was this the fig- 
ment of one mind alone. The representation delighted 
many, and writers enjoyed alluding to it and elaborating 
it, perhaps adding a wheel or two more in order to en- 
hance the effect. In its final forms the figure is the crea- 
tion, not of one poet alone, but of hundreds. 

One point more is worth remarking — that the picture 
of Fortune standing on the wheel satisfied Roman art. 
But in its last analysis that figure is, as I have said, poor 
allegory, for the Fortune depicted with such an unsteady 
footing is not the goddess but the type. Obviously, how- 
ever, the Roman artist did not analyze the idea in that 


FORTUNE’S WHEEL 177 


way. He could hardly have meant us to think of Fortune 
as revolving with the wheel; probably he used the wheel 
as a symbol of instability, as something to identify the 
goddess with that quality. But neither the picture in 
Roman art nor that in Roman literature was satisfactory 
to the mediaeval artist. He represented Fortune as 
strictly the goddess turning the wheel with her own hand; 
and only in a few cases did he leave room for confusion 
with her less dignified offspring “fortune” — that is, 
with her gifts to humanity. 


CONCLUSION 


Any attempt to bring together the various threads of 
thought in the preceding chapters is not merely impos- 
sible, it is really futile. For this study as a whole, in- 
stead of being an extensive analysis of the problem of 
Fortune, is in itself only a summary. Some observations, 
however, follow inevitably from the material which we 
have reviewed. In the first place, our chief question in 
this investigation, at the end of the study as at the begin- 
ning, must be that of the actual survival of the goddess." 
We can have no complete proof of her existence, but are 
there no marks by which we may fairly decide in her 
favor — by which, that is, we may feel justified in believ- 
ing that an actual faith in her persisted? What, after all, 
are the peculiar marks of a religious growth that distin- 
guish it from a poetic fiction? 

As I should judge, they are somewhat as follows: (1) 
continued vitality, which keeps the personified figure 
from becoming outworn; (2) the independence of any 
historical period, to show that the cult is something more 
than a part of some artistic creed or aesthetic fad; (3) an 
automatic development of external media in which we 

t Cf. F. von Bezold, Das Fortleben der antiken Gotter im mittelalterlichen 
Humanismus, p. 76: “Natiirlich handelt es sich dabei nirgends um eine 
offene Riickkehr zu den géttlichen Personen der heidnischen Mythologie. 
Aber es kommt immerhin zu einer so leibhaftigen Veranschaulichung ein- 
zelner antik-philosophischer Begriffe, dass sie fast den Charakter von Gott- 
heiten erhalten oder mindestens als nicht wegzudenkende Faktoren der 


Weltregierung erscheinen. Dies gilt vor allem von der Natur, dem Schicksal 
und der ritselhaften Gestalt der Fortuna.” 


ANNLYOL AO LYNOD AHL 


tl ALWId 


CONCLUSION _ 179 


find the figure embodied — a growth of symbolism, in 
other words; (4) the use of ritual for purposes of devotion 
or for an indication of faith. 

Of these marks, Fortuna shows all, except possibly the 
fourth. And even there, the prevalence of games of 
chance, throwing up a coin to decide an issue, and various 
other minor superstitions which somehow fail to go out 
of usage, seem to give the visible sign of some sort of 
credulity, however flippantly concealed or humorously 
defended. The vitality of the cult in all its aspects is 
perhaps its most salient quality, and the power of the 
goddess to gather to herself the apparatus of half-for- 
gotten folk-lore and to give it life and meaning must 
have some significance. Thus the trappings of old reli- 
gions, in the material taken from accounts of the Earthly 
Paradise or the realm of the Otherworld, and the wheel 
itself, no matter what its source, are charged with new 
power in the literature of the period. Moreover, the god- 
dess still continues in our own day to ride prosperously 
and reign: I have found about sixteen references in Roder- 
ick Random, with the old formulae still going strong; 
Meredith glances at the problem in the Egoist; a “Busi- 
ness Man’s Calendar”’ prays briefly that “Good Fortune 
spin her wheel right merrily for you”; and wherever one 
searches an allusion is sure to turn up. The skeptic denies 
her existence, but in the next moment shows his belief in 
mere chance; the rationalist is likely to continue some- 
thing like the Aristotelian solution; the imaginative 
writer may give her proper space in the skies. But in one 
way or another she goes on, “‘of chaunges newe lady and 
princesse,”’ a favorite of the romanticist, and a phantom 


of delight to pique the intellect of everybody. Only a few, 


180 THE GODDESS FORTUNA 


and they stand out by contrast, have seen in Fortune the 
servant of God performing the Divine Will, and thus dis- 
posing of chance in the only way in which it may be ade- 
quately dealt with and disposed of at the same time. 
These have been, it is true, crass idealists. Some of them 
were also great poets. 


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INDEX 


INDEX 


Abélard and Héloise, 55; Fortune 
rules love, 93. 

Abundance, Fortune of, 120, 128. 

activities of Fortune, 57 ff., 80 ff. 

Adam de la Halle, 56, 71; the wheel, 
156. 

Adenes le Roi, 41. 

Aelfred, King, translation of Boe- 
thius, 30. 

Aeneas Sylvius (Pius II), 55, 57, 58, 
61, 65, 66, 70, 72, 79, 84, 94; Fortu- 
nate Isles, 130 f.; Fortune’s home, 
137 f., 141 f., 144 f.; the wheel, 156. 

Alain de l’Isle, or Alanus de Insulis, 
27, 84; the pagan figure, 17; para- 
doxes of Fortune, 56; Nature, 75 f.; 
Fortune’s dwelling-place, 126 ff., 
136 f., 140, 145; the wheel, 152. 

Anticlaudianus, 17, 44, 48, 52, 55, 
64 f., 70, 126 ff., 136 f., 140, 145, 
152, 

Albertano of Brescia, 66. 

Alberti, Leon Battista, 48, 52, 71, 84, 
Bena, 05, 100, 102, 104, 108, 113, 
11g, 120, 131; remedies against For- 
tune, 23; injuries, 66; Fortune 
causes birth of children, 94. 

Albertus Magnus, 27, 43, 78; attitude 
of compromise, 18; astrology, 76. 

Alciati, Andrea, 45, 116, 149. 

Alexandre de Bernay. See Romans 
d’ Alixandre. 

Amiens, cathedral of, sculpture, 60. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, the wheel, 
Tk. 


Ancren Riwle, 52. 

annihilation of Fortune, 13, 16f., 21 f., 
23, 26, 30. 

Anticlaudianus. See Alain de I’Isle. 

apostrophe, 86. 

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 78; annihilation 
of Fortune, 16 f. 

Ariosto, 43, 47, 58, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 
81, 83, 84, 85, 91, 99, 100, IOI, 102, 
104, TOOU L1G, TiS, 116 S117, 118, 
IIg; the mountain, 135f.; the 
wheel, 155, 156. 

Aristotle, philosophy of chance, 12, 
16, 18,110, 24, 26, 

armed figures, 142. 

Arnobius, 121. 

art, Fortune in, 3, 19, 155 f., 164; 
themes, 43, 44, 45, 48, 51, 52, etc.; 
functions, 98, 100, 102, 110, IIS, 
116, etc.; dwelling-place, (in tapes- 
try) 128,131, 139, 140; the wheel, 19, 
58, 60, 98, 148, 149, 154, 155, etc. 
See emblems; and (for the wheel) 
Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, St. 
Bertrand de Comminges. 

Asclepiadius, Fortune and Death,118. 

Ascoli, Cecco d’, on necessity, 20. 

astrological influence, 15, 30, 76 ff. 

Athis und Prophilias, the wheel, 160 f. 

Atlantis, 130. 

Augustine, St., 24, 74; survival of For- 
tune in the Middle Ages, 9, 15; an- 
nihilation of the goddess, 16. 

Avalon, 130. 

Avarice, 172. 


204 


Aventure, 43, 45, 46, 100, 110; Chris- 
tian figure, 28 f.; relation to For- 
tune, 39 f. See Ventura. 

Awntyrs of Arthure, 68, 84; Fortune a 
wheelwright, 154; the wheel, 158, 


159. 


ball, as symbol, 45, 61, 148; cf. 153. 

ballads, popular, 96. 

Ballata della Fortuna, 58, 70, 114; 
Fortune is the pleasure of God, 23; 
the wheel, 156. 

Bannatyne Manuscript, 84. 

Barbier de Montault, 37, 60, 121, 140, 
148, 164, 173, 174. 

Barbour, John, 79, 109. 

barrier to Fortune’s home, 128 ff., 
132 ff. 

Bastard, Thomas, 2. 

Beaumanoir, Philippe de, 44, 48, 55, 
68, 71, 84, 95 f., 99, 102, 119; Chris- 
tian figure, 28 f.; the wheel, 155, 
156, 157, 158, 160. 

Beauvais, wheel at, 60, 158, 173. 

Bellona, 108. 

Bembo, Pietro, 52, 65, 85, 94, 95, 101, 
102, 104. 

Benivieni, Girolamo, 58 f., 77, 92, 100, 
118; pagan figure, 24; the wheel, 
156, 160. 

Benoit de Ste. Maure, 47, 55, 79, 83, 
100, 102, 104, 107, 115; the wheel, 
157. 

Beowulf, 30. 

Bezold, F. von, 29, 178. 

Bible, the book of Revelation, 62; 
of Proverbs, 66; Biblical characters, 
POE Mates 

blindness of Fortune, 12, 44; blind- 
folded, 44. 

Boccaccio, Christian figure, 22; de- 


INDEX 


scription, 42 ff., 46, 47; tragedy, 
71 f.; Poverty, 72, 73 f.; Love, 92, 
93, 94 f., 96, 115, 118; the wheel, 
156, 157f., 164 f. See plates 3 and 
IO. 

Ameto, 44, 64, 77> 93s 955 109. 

Amorosa Visione, 65,71, 114; the 
wheel, 156, 164 f., 168. 

Comento sopra Dante, 78, 79. 

De Casibus Virorum et Femina- 
rum Illustrium, 32, 42, 43, 44, 49, 
50, 52, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 66, 
68, 79, 71, 81, 83, 85, 99, 103, 108, 
109, 117; Christian figure, 22; de- 
scription, 42 f., 46, 47, etc.; tragedy, 
71; Poverty, 73 f.; Lydgate’s trans- 
lation, 111 f. 

De Claris Mulieribus, or Donne 
Famose, 47, 57, 67, 81, 85, 100, 109, 
IIQ. 

De Genealogia Deorum, Christian 
figure, 22; Fortune the giver, 63; 
Fortune the second of the Fates, 
79: 

Decameron, 48, 50, 58, 63, 68 f., 
76, 81, 83, 84, 91, 94, 100; Fortune 
a harlot, 57. 

Fiammetta, 47, 48, 63, 68, 83, 
84 f., 99, 100; Love, 91, 94 f., 96. 

Filocopo, 45, 47; 48, 50, 52, 63, 
64, 68, 69, 83, 84, 85, 93s 953 99; 100, 
Iol f., 108, 109, 119; the wheel, 156, 
157 f. 

Filostrato, §8, 83; compared with 
Chaucer’s Troilus, 31; Love, 92, 93, 
94, 95, 96, 115, 118. 

Teseide, 43, 48, 65, 68, 76, 79, 84, 
91, 92, 93, 100, 109, 113, I1g, 120; 
Poverty, 72. 

Other works, 50, 66, 79, 81, 84, 
85, 95, 96, 100; the wheel, 156. 


INDEX 


Bocchi, Achille, 37, 45, 56, 58, 60, 78, 
T16, 121. 

Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, 
21, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 
57, 58, 59, 63, 64, 66, 69, 70, 74, 76, 
81, 83, 84, 86; compromise, 17 ff.; 
influence in general, 18, 21, 28, 30 f., 
43, 54, 64, 65, 67, 78, 103, 1545 in- 
fluence on Christian figure, 34; 
themes, 53, 54, 60 f., etc.; tragedy, 
68; the sea, 101, 104; handmaids, 
III; cornucopia, 121; dwelling- 
place of Fortune, 124 f., 137, 140; 
the wheel of God and Fate, 19, 78; 
the wheel of Fortune, 151 ff., 155, 
157, 158. See plates 1 and 4. 

Boiardo, 50, 58, 77, 81, 83, 84, 85, 92, 
95, 99, 100, 102, 104, 108, III, 117, 
118, 119; pagan figure, 23; home of 
the Fata Morgana, 131 f., 138, 142. 

omer ranz.44, $1, 98, 120, 163, 173, 
174, 175. 

Bonet’s L’ Arbre des Battailles, 139. 

Bonneiirte, 41, 56, 76. See Eire. 

Bourdillon, F. W., 44, 48, 154, 164. 

Brant, Sebastian, 78; Ixion’s wheel, 
168. 

bridge ,to Fortune’s dwelling, 142 f. 

Buddhistic wheel of life, 174. 

Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the Ce- 
lestial City, 130. 

Burchiello, 67, 77, 79, 91, 103, 120; 
problem of Fortune, 23. 


Calmo, Andrea, 116. 

Capella, Martianus, mediaeval sur- 
vival of Fortune, 15; Fate, 78. 

Carmina Burana, 50, 51, 59, 60, 64, 
81, 84, 85, 86, 94, 114, 136; medi- 
aeval survival of Fortune, 15; the 
wheel, 152, 164. 


205 


Cassamus, or Les Voeux du Paon, 162. 

Cato, distichs of, referring to Occasio, 
116. 

Cavalcanti, Guido, 57, 64, 65, 67, 
70 f.; Christian figure, 48; sea, 102; 
war, 108. 

chain, as symbol, 98. 

chance, problem of, 4, 24, 33; identi- 
fied with Fortune, 10; allows free- 
will, 18; in a plot, 31; Aventure, 
40; personified, 144. See Sors. 

Chartier, Alain, 40, 42, 47, 52, 55, 59, 
67, 71, 75, 79, 84 85, 92, 94, 96, 
109, 108, Tia. 

Chartres, cathedral of, the wheel, 58. 

Charybdis, Fortune’s wheel a, 104 f., 
131, and plate 6. 

Chaucer, problem of Fortune, 30 ff.; 
Destiny, 31; tragedy, 68, 70, 71 f.; 
astrology, 77 f. 

Balade of Fortune, 75; Christian 
figure, 31; friend in need, 74. 

Book of the Duchesse, 37, 46, 52, 
54, 71, 82; pagan figure, 30. 

Canterbury Tales: 

Knight's Tale, 39, 67, 77, 31; 

82, 109, 113, 119, 155; Destiny, 

Ri 

Monk's, Tale, a7, 515 $23° 575 
BS. 59s O7F>. Fas. is O25 Cas2d 39s 
120; tragedy, 68, 70, 71; the 
wheel, 155. 

Other tales referred to, 40, 52, 
65, 66, 70, 78, 83, 85, 96, 98, 99- 
House of Fame, 43, 110, 111; the 

house, 134, 145. 

Legend of Good Women, 77, 80, 

94, 102, 108. 

Troilus and Criseyde, 39, 42, 44, 

47 50, 51, 54, 56, 68, 81, 83, 92, 94; 

96, 114, 117, 118, 119; Christian 


206 


INDEX 


figure, 31 f.; tragedy, 71 f.; astrol-| compromise, the attitude of, 17 f., 


ogy, 77 f.; Love, 92; the wheel, 160, 
163, 169. 

Other works, 54, 64, 98; tradition 
of the wheel, 153 f. 

Chaucer’s Dream, or The Isle of Ladies, 
118, 119; cf. 130. 

Chauntepleure, 54. 

chess, 81 f. See Echecs Amoureux. 

Chevalier Errant. See Thomas of Sa- 
luzzo. 

Chrestien de Troyes, 50, 65, 68; 
problem of Fortune, 27; the wheel, 
158. See Perceval le Gallois. 

Christ, the wheel of, 58, 175. 

Christian figure, 18 ff., 22, 24, 27 ff., 
30 fF., 34, 35, 39 f., 48, 69, 775 as 
guide, 106; the wheel, 19, 147 f., 
ch c8 v7. 

Christianity, coming of, 3f., 14 ff, 
33 f. 

Christine de Pisan, 42, 48, 51, 52, 56, 
60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 84, 91, 
94, 96, IOI, 102, 104, 105, 114, 117, 
118, 119; the palace of Fortune, 144. 

Church, the Christian, 15 ff., 26, 29; 
subject to injuries from Fortune, 
58, 144. See Christianity, Fathers. 

Cicero, 150. 

Cino da Pistoia, 92, 103, 119. 

cities, Fortune of the, 113 f. 

classical allusions and figures, 3 ff., 
10 ff., 22, 87, 120 ff.; islands, 130; 
the wheel, 149 ff., 152. 

Claudian, 83, 97, 127; dwelling-place 
of Venus, 123 f., 136. 

Colonna, Francesco, Dream of Poli- 
philus, 116. 

combat, Fortune of, 89, 107 ff. 

Complaynt of Scotlande, 42f., 545 
combat, 107 f., 109. 


345 35: 
Condé, Baudouin de, 39, 52, 60, 70, 


172; the wheel and the prison, 161 f. 

Condé, Jean de, $9, 70, 75, 110, 119, 
156; Christian figure, 29; the moun- 
tain, 135 f. 

Consolation of Philosophy. See Boe- 
thius. 

Contention between Liberality and 
Prodigality, 136. 

Conti, Giusto de’, 77. 

cornucopia, as symbol, 116, 120 f. 

court, the, 59 f., 143 ff.; princes sub- 
ject to Fortune, 112. 

Court of Fortune, 92 f., 128, 143 ff., 
and plate 12. 

Court of Love, 123 f., 128, 145. 
Cousin, Jean, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 
53, 56, 60, 65, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 

85, 92,98, 100, 106, 114, IIs) 110, 
147, 148 f., 158, 168, 171. 

Cranstoun, James, 40, 49, 54, 59, 69, 
rye 

Croesus, 64. 

cults of Fortune. See functions, For- 
tuna Barbata, Fortuna Bona, etc. 

Cumont, Franz, quoted, 15. 

Cursor Mundi, the wheel, 162. 


Dante, Christian figure, 18 ff., 22, 24, 
27, 28, 29, 31; tragedy, 68, 69, 114. 
Inferno, 54, 64, 99, 100, 111; 
Christian figure, 18 ff., 27, 28, 29, 
31; tragedy, 114. 
Purgatorio, 69, 146. 
Paradiso, 50, 76, 85, 102, 175. 
Other works, 68, 101, 109, 117, 
130. 
Death, 45, 89, 116, 117 ff.; Atropos, 
89; city of Fortune and valley of 


INDEX 


Death, 133; wheel and pit, grave, 
or coffin, 163, 173; wheel of Death, 
174. 

Débat de Lomme Mondain et du Relig- 
1@UX, 47, 103. 

Dekker’s Troia-Nova Triumphans, 
Fame’s house, 134. 

de rota Fortunae, poem referred to, 
Thy. 

Deschamps, Eustache, 42, 59, 61, 64, 
65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 78, 85, 92, 
g6, 100, 105, 108, 110, 119; pagan 
figure, 29; game of bowls, 82; tree, 
139 f. 

description of Fortune, 42 ff., 106, 
etc. 

Desfame, 61, III. 

Destiny, 29 f., 31, 39, 61, 76, 77, 78 fF. 

devil, Fortune identified with, 16, 24; 
Satan’s chain, 98. 

Dictys Cretensis, Fortune of the sea, 
EOEIO7. 

Dinaux, Arthur, 59, 101, 120. 

Dit de ? Empereur Coustant, 160. 

Donnei des Amants, 67; the wheel, 
Tear 

Doren, A., study of Fortuna, dis- 
cussed, 23 f. 

Douglas, Gavin, 53, 54, 55. 

Dream of Poliphilus. See Colonna. 

drinks of Fortune, 52 ff., 91, 126f., 
137 f. See fountains. 

Dryden, John, 59. 

Du Cange, C. D., Glossarium, 107. 

Du Sommerard, A., 43, 44, 48, 60, 
120, 164, 173. 

Dunbar, William, 40, 57, 75, 83, 84, 
IOI, 102, 117; Time and Fortune, 
11S. 

Durham Cathedral Library, altars of 
Fortune, 30. 


207 


Durrieu, Paul, 44 f., 74, 154, 164. 

dwelling-place of Fortune, 62, 123 ff.; 
barrier to approach, 128 ff.; river, 
129 f., 142 f., 146; road, 133, 134; 
bridge, 142 f.; situated on an island, 
129 ff., 145; on a mountain, 123 ff, 
132 ff., 145; garden, 123 f., 136 ff.; 
fountains, 52, 123 f., 127, 137 f.3 
streams, 126 f., 137 f.; trees, 126, 
TQilessbdl.ce palace, .337) fear sarhe 
140 ff., 145 f.; gates, 141 f.; court, 
128, 143 ff. See plate 7. 


Echecs Amoureux, Les, 8 3; problem of 
Fortune, 29, 32; tuns of good and 
evil, 53; the wheel, 19, 160, 163, 
172 take. 

Eger and Grine, 100. 

Elie de Wincestre, 116. 

emblems, 37, 45, 51, 52, 83, 84, 102, 
110, 116, 149, 173. 

Empire, period of the, 12 f., 22, 25, 
121 f. See Rome. 

English literature, allusiorts to For- 
tune, 27, 29 ff., and passim. 

Folus, 104. 

epithets, 37 ff. 

Escoufie, L’, 41, 48, 68, 79, 91, 95. 

Eure, Etirs, 61, 112; serves Fortune, 
40 ff.; Death, 117. See Bonneiirte. 

Everard, 116. 

exile, theme, 67. 


faith in Fortuna, 3 ff., 14 ff., 34, 122, 
146, 179 ff. 

Fame, connection with Fortune, 64, 
89, 110 ff.; personified, 110 ff., 1445 
trumpets of, 111; house of, 134, 
145. 

Fata Morgana, 23, 104, 131 f., 142. 

Fate, relation with Fortune, Io ff., 


208 


18 f., 29 ff., 39, 77, 78 ff.; the wheel, 
175, 178; the Three Fates, 4, 30, 79, 
89, 118, 144, 149. See Destiny. 

Fathers, the Church, on Fortune, 9, 
£6, COP 21076576578. 

Felicity, 42. 

fickleness of Fortune, 11 f., 49 ff, 
1O8:f.,34 frst, ete. 

fire, wheel of, 175. 

Floire et Blanceflor, 50, 57, 58, 59; the 
wheel, 51. 

Folie Tristan, 134. 

Fols-s’i-fie, 118. 

formula of four, 60, 164 ff. For other 
formulae, see themes. 

Fors, Fors Fortuna, Io f. 

fortitude, remedy of, 13, 16, 24, 25, 
42, 8%. 

Fortuna, activities of, 57 ff., 80 ff.; 
allusions to, 3 f., 6, etc.; attitude 
toward, 4 ff., 8 ff.; character, 47 ff., 
(fickleness) 11 f., 49 ff., 108 f.,124f., 
131, etc., (harlot) 12, 56 f.; court, 
g2 f., 128, 143 ff., and see plate 12; 
description, 42 ff., 106, etc., (blind- 
ness) 12, 44, (forelock) 116 f.; 
drinks that she gives, 52 ff., 91, 
126 f., 137 f.; dwelling-place, 123 ff., 
and see plate 7; functions and cults, 
15, 88 ff.; games, 81 f.; garments, 
46s cits 67 M078 fi Took a tes 
manner, 47 ff.; philosophy, 3 f., 
8 ff.; power, 57 ff.; as queen, 60 ff., 
132 f., 143 ff.; reflection of tempera- 
ment, 5, 8; relatives, 29, 42, 48 f.; 
remedies against, 13, 16, 20, 24, 25, 
42, 48, 83; survival, 3 ff, 9, 14 fF, 
34, 122, 146, 179 ff.; traditional 
themes, 35 ff.; war with man, 84 f.; 
wheel, 147 ff. 


fortuna, meaning “storm,” 107. 


INDEX 


Fortuna Barbata, 15; Fortuna Bona, 
20, 49, $7, 121, cf. Eiire; Fortuna 
Dux, 15, 89 ff.; Fortuna Mala, 20, 
121, cf. Maletre; Fortuna Mulie- 
bris, 15; Fortuna Panthea, 12, 52; 
Fortuna Primigenia, 49, 61; For- 
tuna Redux, 100, 169; Fortuna 
Virilis, 121; Fortuna Viscata, 82, 
121; Fortuna Volubilis, 45. 

Fortunate Isles, 130 f. 

fortune. See Fortuna, personified ab- 
straction, type. 

fountains, 52, 123 f., 127, 137 f. 

free-will, in relation to chance, 12, 18, 
31 f.; personified(Franche-Volonté), 
166. 

Fregoso, Antonio Phileremo, 45, 46, 
57, 64, 65, 98, 106; relatives of 
Fortune, 49; dwelling-place, 134 ff., 
138, 142, 145. 

French literature, allusions to For- 
tune, 27 ff., and passim. 

Frezzi, Federigo, 43, 45, 50, 55, 64, 
65, 725 74, 83, 99, 100, 102, 108, 
III, 134; problem of Fortune, 23; 
several wheels, 166, 167, 170. 

friend in need, theme, 74. 

Froissart, Jean, 42, 52, 53, 67, 71, 75, 
79, 83 f., 96, 100, 104, 108, 118, 119, 
120; pagan figure, 29; wheels of 
Desire, Temperance, etc., 98, 175; 
wheel of Fortune, 157, 160. 

functions and cults of Fortune, 15, 
88 ff.; Fortune of Combat, 89 f., 
107 ff.; of Death, 89, 117 ff.; of 
Fame, 89, 110 ff.; of Love, 89, go fF.; 
of the Sea, 89 f., 101 ff.; of Time, 
89, 115 ff.; the Guide, 89 f., 99 f.; 
Personal Fortuna, 89f., 112 f.; 
other cults, 120 f. See Fortuna Bar- 
bata, Fortuna Bona, etc. 


INDEX 


games of Fortune, 81 f. 

garden, Fortune’s, 123 f., 136 ff. 

Gareth, Benedetto, 63, 64, 84, 95, 104, 
113, 114. 

garments, Fortune’s, 46. 

Gau, John, 115. 

Gautier de Coincy, 82. 

Gedicht auf die Zerstorung Mailands, 
81, 101, 113; the wheel, 154. 

Gerbert of Aurillac (Silvester ID), 
74; Fortune of the Sea, 103 f., 105. 

Gesta di Federico, 55, 64, 79, 83, 108, 
10g, 113; the wheel, 151. 

Gesta Romanorum, 52 f. 

Ghirardacci, Cherubino, 71. 

gifts of Fortune, 63 ff., 75 ff., 120f.,135. 

Giovanni Fiorentino, 67, 79, 94, 100, 
119, 155; winds of Fortune, 103. 

Girart de Rossillon, the wheel, 155, 
158, 160. 

glass, symbolic use of, 51, 134. 

God, the Christian, 4, 14, 19, 22, 27, 
anean4t, 34, 05, 66, 69, 70; the 
wheel, 58, 175. 

Goethe’s Faust, 54. 

Gower, John, problem of Fortune, 24, 
30; love tuns, 53; astrology, 77, 97; 
the house, 111; the wheel, 155, 156, 
158, 166. 

Balades, 71, 94, 109, 157. 

Confessio Amantis, 49, 53, 555 595 
64, 76, 775 79, 81, 83, 84; 945 995 100, 
Boz, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, III, 
121; astrology, 97; personal For- 
tuna, 113; the wheel, 155, 156, 158. 

Cronica Tripertita, 47, 49, 51, 66, 
81, 83, 10g, IIo. 

Mirour de Omme, 40, 48, 55, 59, 
61, 63, 68, 70, 72, 79, 81, 83, 103; 
104, 108, 109, 114, 119; the house, 
111; the wheel, 155, 156. 


209 


Vox Clamantis, 47, 51, 54, 55, 56, 
57, 58, 63, 71, 79, 81, 83, 85, 104, 
108, 114, 119; the wheel, 166. 

Other works, 110, 169. 

Graf, Arturo, quoted, 15. 

Grant Mal fist Adam, 55. 

Gude and Godlie Ballatis, 71, 81. 

Guicciardini, Francesco, 55, 58, 71, 
83, 108, 109, 114; Renaissance atti- 
tude toward Fortune, 25. 

guide, Fortuna the, 89 f., 99 ff. 

Guido delle Colonne, 119. 

Guillaume de Guilleville, 43, 69, 76, 
78, 82; Lydgate’s translation, 149; 
the tree, 131, 138 ff.; the wheel, 
104 f., 131, 149, 156; wheel of tor- 
ment, 168; wheel of Desire, 173. 

Guillaume de Lorris. See Roman de la 
Rose. 

Guillaume de Machaut, pagan figure, 
29; the wheel, 158, 170. 

Remede de Fortune, 41, 43 f., 45, 
Low Hy oly Money ak thaws eae Meet) t. 
136 f. 

Other works, 40, 41 f., 50, 56, 63, 
64, 65, 68, 72, 75, 76, 77, 80, 81, 83, 
84, 91, 92, 94, 96, 98, 100, IOI, 104, 
FOS LISS TIO. 1 34,5 156; 


harlot, Fortune a, 12, 56 f. 

Hay, Sir Gilbert, 42, 71; tree of war- 
fare, 139. 

Henler, G..97'5 891035195. 

Heinrich von dem Tirlein’s Diu 
Crone, 142 f. 

Héloise, 55; Fortune rules love, 93. 

Henryson, Robert, 97; the wheel, 160, 
167 f. 

Herodotus, 149. 

Hesperides, Isles of the, 130. 

high to low, theme, 68 ff., 151 f. 


210 


Hildebert of Lavardin, 43, 47, 59, 67, 
74, 81, 86, 101; pagan figure, 17; 
gifts, 64; Love, go ff.; the wheel, 
157. 

Hoccleve, Thomas, 51, 57, 68, 72, 75, 
104, 114, 137; pagan figure, 32. 

Holkot, Robert, 103. 

Homer. See J/iad. 

Honorius of Autun, 64; the wheel, 
152 1., 167, 

Horace, 11 f., 147. 

hymns, Analecta Hymnica, 39, 55, 68, 
69, 70, 81, 86. 


ice, comparison with, 51, 137; rock of, 
133 f. 

Hiad, 43, 53. 

Imperial, Francisco, 78. 

Innocent III, 61. 

islands, 126 ff., 145 f. 

Isle of Ladies. See Chaucer’s Dream. 

Italian literature, allusions to For- 
tune, 18 ff., and passim. 

Ixion, 167. 


James I of Scots, Kingis Quair, 46, 59, 
78, 79, 81, 101, 137; Love, 93; the 
wheel and the pit, 158, 161 ff. 

Jean de Garenciéres, 42, 96. 

Jean de Meun, 160; astrology, 78; 
war, 107, 109. See Roman de la 
Rose. 

Jean le Seneschal, 41, 83, 94, 99. 

Jennaro, Pietro Jacopo de, 83, 99. 

Jerome, St., 16, 81. 

jewels, precious stones, 124, 126 f., 
142 ff. 

John, King of France, Petrarch’s ad- 
dress to, 21 f., 27, 67. 

John of Altaville, 44, 79, 81. 


INDEX 


Jones, Sir William, Palace of Fortune, 
134, 145. 

Jove, 3, 4, 22, 25, 31, 53,61. See Jupi- 
ter. 

Juan de Mena, 170, 173. 

Junius, Adrian, 45. 

Juno, 32, 66, 104. 

Jupiter, 49, 112. See Jove. 

Justice, father of Fortune, 48 f. 

Juvenal, 13. 


Katherine, St., wheel of, 175. 
Kingis Quair. See James I. 


Lactantius, 16, 84. 

Latin literature, allusions to Fortune, 
g, 11 ff., 15 fF., 23, and passim. 

Latini, Brunetto, 39, 60, 74. 

law, wheel of the, 175. 

Lindsay, David, 58, 59, 75, 83, 102, 
120. 

Lindsay, Robert, of Pitscottie, 68, 80. 

literary use of Fortune, 9, 35 ff. See 
themes. 

Livy, 13, 83, 170. 

Lorens, Frére, gifts of God, 65 f. 

lots, casting, 80 f.; lot personified, 144. 
See chance, Sors. 

Love, 115, 118, 144; Fortune the god- 
dess of, 22, 29, 53, 66, 89, 90 ff.; 
prison of, 161. See Court of Love, 
Venus. 

Lucan, §9, 113, 117. 

Lydgate, John, problem of Fortune, 
32; tragedy, 71; Love, 97; trumpets 
and house of Fame, 111 f.; house 
of Fortune, 128; the wheel, 153 f., 
155, 156, 157, 159, 163, 169. 

Fall of Princes, 46, 58, 60, 77, 82, 
140, and frontispiece; tragedy, 71; 
trumpets and house of Fame, 111 f 


INDEX 


Siege of Thebes, 48, 53, 59, 68, 79, 
108, 109; the wheel, 156, 163. 

Troy Book, 40, 42, 43, 445 48, 50, 
51, 52, 55, 575 59, 60, 64, 70, 72, 75, 


79, 80, 81, 83, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 
162, 103, 104, 107, 108 f., 109, 114, 


117, 118, 119; problem of Fortune, 
32; the wheel, 153 f., 155, 156, 159. 

Other works, 42, 43, 46, 47, 51, 
52, 53, 555 56, 61, 64, 65, 70, 75, 78, 
79, 81, 85, 94, 96, 100, Ios, 108, 
fegetig. 115,.120,.149; Love, 97; 
the house, 128; the wheel, 155, 156, 


157,159, 163, 169, 175. 


Maccio, Paulo, 102. 

Machaut. See Guillaume de. 

Machiavelli, Niccolé, 47, 57, 65, 72, 
84, 92, 108, 111, 11S, 117, 143, 1445 
Renaissance conception of Fortune, 
24; the wheel, 169. 

Maleire, 40 ff., 61, 112; maleureus 
(adj.), 41,56. See Meseiirs, Fortuna 
Mala. 

Malory’s Morte Darthur, 162. : 

Map, Walter, 59; the wheel, 167 f. 

Margarita Philosophica. See Reisch. 

Marie de France, 95, 152, 168. 

Mars, Fortune’s treatment of, 108. 

Martin le Franc, 29, 43, 44, 71, 
154. 

Masuccio Salernitano, 47, 48, 65, 94, 
eeerod, 105, 107, 113, 119,157; 
problem of Fortune, 23. 

Matzke, J. E., cited, 116. 

Medici, Lorenzo de’, 39, 43, 63, 67, 77, 
81 f., 83, 85, 91, 92, 945 95, 99, 102, 
104, 118; gifts, 66; the wheel, 156. 

Melusine, 48, 50, 57, 96, 136. 

Meseiirs, 41, 48, 60. See Maleiire. 

Michault, Pierre, 41, 43, 56, 61, 74, 


2I1 


775 96, 117, 118; trumpets, 112; the 
wheel, 172. 

Michel, Dan, Ayenbite of Inwyt, 6s, 
154. 

Milan, poem on the destruction of. 
See Gedicht auf die Zerstérung. 

Milton, Comus, 130; Paradise Lost, 
$3, 130. 

Mirrour of Maitestie, 45, 106. 

misfortune, bad fortune, unfavorable 
fortune, etc., 42, 43, 49, 64, 725 745 
etc. See Maletire, Meseirs, For- 
tuna Mala. 

Montgomerie, Alexander, 37, 48, 51, 
83, 84, 91, 94, 96, 99, III. 

moon, Fortune compared with the, 
50 f.; as symbol, 61 f. 

More, Sir Thomas, 32. 

Mort Artu, 133, 162. 

Morte Arthur, stanzaic, 162. 

Morte Arthure, alliterative, 30, 46, 62, 
71, tO2, 

mountain, as symbol, 123 ff., 132 ff., 
14§ e 

Mure, Sir William, 43, 104. 

Mystére de Bien-Advisé et Mal-Advisé, 
166. 


Nature, 9, 41; Nature and Fortune, 
Gok an ie 

Nemesis, 78, 83, 149. 

Neptune, 104. 

Nicole de Margival, 51, 96; Fortune 
and Love, 29, 93; the house, 41, 
133 f., 141, 143, 145. 

Nobility, daughter of Fortune, 48. 

Norns, 30. 

Now — now, theme, 12, 55 f. 


Occasio, 23, 45, 80, 115 ff. 
Occleve. See Hoccleve. 


212 


Opinion, 49, III. 

Ordericus Vitalis, the wheel, 152. 

Orléans, Charles d’, 40, 42, 43, 47, 
50, 51, 60, 61, 63, 67, 83, 84, 85, 96, 
100,' 102, 104,'104, 115, 119s Love, 
29; the wheel, 156. 

Orosius, 130. 

Orphic mysteries, 172, 174. 

Ortiz, Ramiro, 72. 

Otherworld, 126 ff., 129 f., 132, 146. 
See Paradise. 

Ovidnd Fy 22-27) 60.8 3 


pagan figure, 10 ff., 17, 24 ff., 26 f., 
395 325 345 35. 
Painter, William, 162 f. 
Panthére d’Amours. See Nicole de 
Margival. 
Paradise, Earthly, 130f., 140, 146. 
See Otherworld. 
paradoxes of Fortune, 55 f. 
Pearl, The, $2; 56, 110. 
Peraldus, Guilielmus, 65. 
Perceval le Gallois, 41; Occasio, 116; 
the wheel, 169. 
personal Fortuna, 89, 112 f,. 
personified abstraction, 17, 30, 36 f., 
125. See type. 
Petit Traittiet du Malheur de France, 
108; the wheel, 160, 172. 
Petrarch, problem of Fortune, 20 ff.; 
islands, 127; the wheel of Fate, 175. 
Address to King John, 21f., 27, 67. 
Africa, 47, 50, 66, 68, 78, 80, 81, 
100, 109, 113; the wheel of Fate, 
176. 
Bucolicum Carmen, 48, §8, 65, 70, 
78, 79; the wheel of Fate, 175. 
De Remedtis Utriusque Fortunae, 
23, 74; problem of Fortune, 20. 
De Viris Illustribus, or Vite degli 


INDEX 


Uomini Illustri, 49, §0, 57 f., 63, 67, 
69, 81, 100, 108, 109, 113. 
Rime, 66, 70, 77, 81, 83, 92, 93 f., 
102, III, 113, 117; islands, 127. 
Trionfi, 49, 52, 94. 

philosophy of Fortune, 3 ff., 8 ff. 

Picinelli, Filippo, 45, 84. 

Pico della Mirandola, 75, 76, 103; 
problem of Fortune, 24; war, 107. 
Pierre de la Broche, 43, 52, 53, 54, 56, 
74 f., 86, 119, 160, and plate 9; 

Christian figure, 28. 

Piers Plowman, 61, 66, 72, 77; person- 
ified abstraction, 30. 

Pius II. See Aeneas Sylvius. 

planetary influence. See astrological 
influence. 

Pleure-chante, poem referred to, 54. 

Pliny, 2, 11, 39, 131. 

Plutarch, 2, 12, 130. 

Politian (or Poliziano), Angelo Am- 
brogini, 44, 50, 60, 63, 64, 81, gI, 
92, 95, 98, 99, 120; pagan figure, 24; 
Occasio, 116; the wheel, 155, 157. 

Pontano, Giovanni, 45, 47, 64, 66, 75, 
76, 79, 81, 83, 103 f., 115; problem 
of Fortune, 23 f., 77; astrology, 77; 
Fate, 78. 

Poverty, 61, 72 ff., 144, 145; the 
wheel, 171, 173. See plate 3. 

power of Fortune, 57 ff. 

Prato, Giovanni da, 66. 

predestination, 32. 

Premierfait, Laurent de, 32. 

pride, in tragedy, 69 f.; the tree, 139; 
the wheel, 171 f. 

Priorat, Jean, 108, 109. 

prison theme, 67. 

problem of Fortune, 3 ff., 8 ff. See 
chance, personified abstraction, 
philosophy, type. 


INDEX 


Proverbs, the book of, 66. 

Providence, Divine, 18. 

prudence, remedy of, 13, 16, 20, 48. 

Prudentius, Psychomachia, 81. 

Pucci, Antonio, 64, 158. 

Pulci, Bernardo, 117 f. 

Pulei, Luca, 95.- 

Pulci, Luigi, 47, 48, 50, 55, 66, 77, 81, 
85, 99, 100, 104, 105, 109, 118, 120; 
pagan figure, 24; personal, 112 f.; 
the wheel, 155, 156, 170. 

Purgatory, mountain of, 132. 

Pyramus and Thisbe, allusion to the 
story of, 96 f. 


quanto — tanto, theme, 54 f. 
queen, Fortune as, 60 f¥., 132 f., 143 ff. 


Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, 

. The, 98. 

reason, opposed to Fortune, 13, 14, 
20, 34, 99; personified, 23, 28, 48, 
141, 166. See plate 2. 

Régne de Fortune, Le, tot. 

Reisch, Gregor, Margarita Philoso- 
phica, 53, 164. 

relatives of Fortune, 29, 42, 48 f. 

remedies against Fortune, 13 f., 16, 
20; fortitude, 13, 16, 24, 25, 42, 83; 
prudence, 13, 16, 20, 48; virtue, 13, 
16, 20. 

Renaissance, 3, 24 ff., 32, 34. 

Renart le Nouvel, 40, 158, 172. 

René d’Anjou, 52, 104. 

Renomée, 61, III. 

Revelation, the book of, 62. 

riches, 64 ff., 72, 120, 171; personified, 
61, 144. 

Ripa, Cesare, 98, 106, 110, 121. 

river, as symbol, 129 f., 142 f., 146. 


aR 


road, to Fortune’s house, 133 f. 

Robert of Avesbury, so. 

rock, as symbol, 62, 125, 126, 134; 
of ice, 133 f. 

Roman de Fauvel, 39, 43, 445 49, 54, 
59, 60, 68, 71, 74, 79, 141; Christian 
figure, 29; several wheels, 156, 157, 
170. 

Roman de la Rose, 28, 44, 46, 47, 48, 
50; 52, 53, 55 f., 63, 64, 65, 69, 71, 
PE dy 70s 402 5, 05 Os OR too. 
143, 146; the house, 127, 128, and 
plate 7; the wheel, 153 f., 155, 157, 
160, 169. 

Roman du Renart, 70, 171; problem 
of Fortune, 27 f. 

Romans d’ Alixandre, 118; the wheel 
160. 

romanticism, 6, 26, 156, 

Romanz de la Poire, Love, 92 f.; the 
mountain, 132 f.; the wheel, 160. 
KROme;< 2, 4..0ot. aes 2a, 26 3ee OTF 
114, 120, 121 f., 123; the wheel, 148, 

149 f., 154, 155. 

Rommant de Fortune et tous les Estas 
du Monae, 65. 

Roscher, W. H., 12, 149. 

Rossetti’s King’s Tragedy, 163 f. 

royalty, subject to Fortune, 9 f., 112, 
133, 143 ff. 

rudder, as symbol, 106. 

Rutebeuf, 52, 54, 70, 75, 160; poem 
to the Blessed Virgin, 61 f. 


’ 


Sacchetti, Franco, 82, 84, 117. 

Saelde, Frau, 142; cf. 30, woruldseld. 

St. Bertrand de Comminges, the 
wheel at, 148. 

Saints, Legends of the, 59, 100. 

Sannazaro, Jacopo, 50, 55, 59, 63, 64, 
67, 68, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 92, 00, 


214 


INDEX 


103, 113, 118; pagan figure, 23; the | Stewart, John of Baldynneis, 51, 137. 


wheel, 157, 168, 169. 

Sapienza, 71, 81, and plate 5. 

Scarlattini, Octavio, 44, 52, 149. 

scholasticism, 16 f., 20, 23. 

Schoonhoven, Floris van, 45, 51, 81, 
84, 149. 

scorpion, Fortune a, 52. 

sea, Fortune and the, 82, 89 f., 101 fF., 
126, 126, 130. 

Seneca, 20, 42, 63, 78, 98; nature of 
Fortune, 12; remedies, 13; the 
wheel, 150. 

Septimellensis, Henricus, 39, 43, 44, 
46, 47 f., 50, 52, 55, 57, 60, 64, 67, 
90, 743) 79, 81, 86, 1OF, 157; trani« 
tion from Boethius, 18; Fortune 
a stepmother, 56; the wheel, 151, 
156 f. 

Sercambi, Giovanni, 84, 94, 96, 100, 
11%) Tq. 

serpent, Fortune resembles a, 52. 

seven ages, on the wheel, 173 f. 

Shakespeare, 4s You Like It, 173 f.; 
Hamlet, 91; Richard II, 54; Romeo 
and Fuliet, 163; Troilus and Cres- 
Sida, 137. 

Sibbald, James, 59s 645 75577» 79s 1045 
the wheel, 156. 

Silvester II. See Gerbert of Aurillac. 
Simund de Freine, 40, 50, 55, 64, 116, 
158; tradition from Boethius, 28. 
sin, Fortune punishes, 69 ff. See 

pride. 

Solorzano Pereira, Juan de, 45 f., 51. 

Sophocles, 149. 

Sors, 81, 149. See chance, lots. 

Spanish literature, allusions to For- 
tune, 78, 134, 170, 173. 

Squyr of Lowe Degre, The, 110, 175. 

Staveren, Augustino van, 131, 168. 

stepmother, Fortune as, 56. 


storms, Fortune brings, 104 ff.; “for- 
tuna” meaning “storm,”’ 107. 

streams, 126 f., 137 f. 

sun, wheel of the, 147, 175. 

Sylvius. See Aeneas Sylvius. 


Taillevent, Michault, 63, 64; house 
of Fortune, 127 f.; the wheel, 156. 

Tasso, 106. 

Tertullian, 15, 51. 

themes of Fortune, 35 ff., 159 ff.; 
blindness, 12, 44; now — now, 12, 
55; harlot, 12, s6f.; tragedy, 31f,, 
68 ff.; epithets, 38 ff.; description, 
42 ff.; many hands, 44; forelock, 
45; whited-sepulchre, 46; character, 
47 f.; fickleness, 49 ff. (see fickle- 
ness); drinks,. 52 ff. (see drinks); 
quanto — tanto, 54f.; paradoxes, 
55 f.; stepmother, 56; power, 57 ff.; 
activities, 57 ff., 80 ff.; formula of 
four, 60, 164 ff.; queen, 60 (see 
queen); gifts, 63 ff. (see gifts); prison, 
exile, 67; high to low, 68 ff., 151 f.; ex- 
amples, 70 ff.; vb sunt formula, 72; 
Poverty and Fortune, 72 ff.; friend 
in need, 74; astrology, 76 ff.; Fate, 
78 f.; games, 81 f.; war with man, 
84 f.; the wheel, 159 ff. (see wheel); 
casts victims in the mud, I6of.; 
prison below the wheel, 161; the 
pit, 161 ff.; Ixion’s wheel, 167. 

Thomas, Marquis of Saluzzo, Che- 
valier Errant, 48, 55, 66, 84; For- 
tune’s dwelling, 134 ff., 143 f., 145; 
the wheel, 156. 

Tibullus, 150. 

Time, Fortune and, 89, 115 ff. 

tournament, Fortune in, 23. 

tragedy, 31 f., 68 ff. 

trees, of Fortune, 126, 131, 138 ff. 


INDEX 


Pigs 


Trissino, Giovanni Georgio, 43, 67,| Watriquet de Couvin, 38, 39 f., 43, 


84, 92, 100, 109, IIg, 136. 
Trouveres. See Dinaux. 
Troy, Fortune of the city, 114. 
trumpets, horns, 61, 111 f., 142. 
Turbervile, George, 4 Controversie... 
twixt Fortune.and Venus, 98. 
tutelary goddess, 12, 89 f., 112 f, 
Tyche, Io. 
type and symbol, problem of, 36 f., 
86, 103, 148 f., 176 f. See person- 
ified abstraction. 
Tyrnau in Hungary, wheel at, 19. 


Uberti, Fazio degli, 114, 155; pagan 
figure, 23. 
vbi sunt formula, 72. 


Vaine Gloire, 49. 

Ventura 39 f., 74, 92,116. See Aven- 
ture. 

Venus, survival of, 3; turns the wheel, 
relation with Fortuna, 96 ff.; chain 
of, 98; home of, 123 ff., 138. See 
Court of Love. 

Villon, Fran¢ois, 47, 49, 67, 72. 

Vincent of Beauvais, 52, 130. 

Virgil, 83, 150. 

Virgin, the Blessed, confusion with 
Fortuna, 61 ff. 

virtue, remedy of, 13, 16, 20; and see 
plate 2. 

Voyage of Bran, The, 130, 146. 


Wace, 74, 102, 114; the wheel, 153. 
Wackernagel, K. H. W., 51, 79, 164 f. 
Wallace, Schir William, 59, 83; For- 
tune and the Blessed Virgin, 62 f. 
war, Fortune and, 66, 89, 107 ff., 171; 
between Fortune and man, 84 f. 
Wars of Alexander, 162. 


45, 46 f., 55, 68, 70, 117, 118, 119; 
Aventure, Christian figure, 28 f.; 
Eiirs, 40 f.; city of Fortune on a 
mountain, 133, 140f., 143; the 
wheel, 157. 

weapons, of Fortune, 84 f., 93. 

Weinhold, K., 44, 48, 60, 118, 120, 
148, 163, 164, 173, 174. 

wheel) of Forttune).27,.30, 45 f., So, 
58, 60, 61, 74, 121,147 ff.; centrif- 
ugal, 119 f., 160 ff.; significance, 
147 ff; classical figure, 149 ff.; For- 
tune turned on the wheel, 152 ff.; 
mediaeval figure, 154 ff.; men at- 
tached, 155 ff.; it cannot stop, 157; 
turns the wrong way, 158; themes 
in the description, 159 ff.; roe-boe 
rime, 160; various mediaeval con- 
ceptions of, 168 ff.; course, 169; a 
vehicle, 169; several wheels (wheel 
of Desire, wheel of Temperance), 
98, 169 f.; wheel of Pazienza and 
Pace, 171 f.; wheel of seven ages, 
173 f.; other wheels, 147, 175. See 
frontispiece, and plates 1, 2, 5-11. 

Christianity and the wheel, 19, 

58,147 f.; Death, 119 f.; divination, 
155; Fate, 46, 78; Ixion’s wheel, 
167; Love, 92, 96, 98, 161 ff.; Love’s 
prison and the pit, 161 ff.; wheel in 
the sea, 104 f.; wheel of Time, 115; 
of Ventura, 39; of Victory, 110; 
with a wing, 45, 147. 

William of Malmesbury, 16, 52, 121. 

winds of Fortune, 103 f., 126. 

Wireker, Nigel, 15, 56, 64, 83. 

world, Fortune’s interest in the, 58 f,, 
74; mundane gifts, 63; honors of 
the, 159. 

woruldszld, 30. 

wyrd, 29 f., 39. 


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